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Two young men have been sentenced to death by a special court in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu for the brutal murder of four members of a Dalit family, including two children, at a village in the district in 2007.
Judge T S Nandhakumar of the Special Court, formed under the Protection of Civil Rights Act, also sentenced Katturaja, 32, and Vettum Perumal, 33, to five terms of life imprisonment which will run consecutively.
In his order, the judge slapped a fine of Rs 2.5 lakh on each of them.
According to prosecution, Katturaja suspected that his 29-year old wife Subbulakshmi had an illicit affair with one Jayakumar, a care-taker of a farm house at Meenavankulam near Kalakaadu.
He informed his close relative Perumal about his suspicion. Both of them hatched a plot to murder Jayakumar.
On April 19, 2007, the duo went to the farm house and killed Jayakumar. Later, they killed Jayakumar's wife, who had tried to protect her husband.
Though Indira, 11, and Chitra, 8 -- daughters of the couple -- bolted themselves inside the house, Katturaja and Perumal broke open the door and killed them too.
The quadruple murder had sent shock waves across the state.