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Vengaivayal Issue: CB-CID Files Chargesheet Against 3 Dalit Men; DMK's Allies Demand CBI Probe
Vengaivayal Issue: Filing an affidavit in Madras High Court, the CB-CID stated, as per PTI, that the incident was due to a personal enmity between the accused and panchayat president's husband.
Vengaivayal issue: The Tamil Nadu Crime-Branch CID filed a chargesheet against three Dalit men after completing the probe into 2022 Vengaivayal caste crime case, where human faeces were mixed into overhead tank used by SC/ST people. Filing an affidavit in Madras HC, the CB-CID stated, as per PTI, that the incident was due to a personal enmity between the accused and panchayat president's husband. However, DMK's allies, including CPI(M) and VCK, soon demanded a CBI probe into the case.
Notably, the chargesheet omitted sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which were initially invoked when the case was registered.
In December 2022, Vengaivayal caste crime case occurred in Pudukottai district and came to light when villagers started to fall ill. The doctors at the Pudukottai government hospital found out that the health issue was due to consumption of contaminated water and alerted the residents about a possible contamination. Soon, it led to the shocking discovery of faeces in the water tank. The district police initially handled the investigation before being transferred to the CB-CID.
Political Parties Demand CBI Probe
CPI(M) Tamil Nadu secretary P Shanmugam criticised the chargesheet stating it unfairly accuses members of the affected SC community. He urged the Tamil Nadu government to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for an impartial inquiry. "The CB-CID is constrained to close the two-year-old case. The CB-CID's accusation that the affected community was responsible for the crime is not proper," Shanmugam said in a statement, as per PTI.
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) president Thol Thirumavalavan also expressed dismay over the chargesheet and called the accusations against SC individuals "deeply troubling". "It is shocking that the Tamil Nadu Police has named three people from the Scheduled Caste community as accused in the Vengaivayal case. We urge the trial court not to accept the police chargesheet; it should order a further investigation," Thirumavalavan stated, in a statement shared on X.