Five sentenced to double life imprisonment for beheading Congress leader over car loan dispute
In a landmark judgment, a court in Tamil Nadu has sentenced five individuals to double life imprisonment for the kidnapping and murder of a local Congress party president in 2015. The case stems from a dispute over a car loan that escalated into a gruesome crime.
According to Additional Public Prosecutor S. Velusamy, the victim, Rajagopal, was the Shencottai area Congress president. He was killed after helping a finance company repossess a car from K. Samidurai, the main accused. Samidurai had gifted the car to his first wife but later took it to his house after moving in with his second wife. When he defaulted on the loan, the finance firm sought Rajagopal's assistance to recover the vehicle.
Enraged by this, Samidurai and his four accomplices kidnapped Rajagopal on August 12, 2015, as he was walking home. They murdered him, then drove to Murikulam on the Thaazhaiyooththu – Kanniyakumari National Highway, where they decapitated him to prevent identification. The body was burned at Murikkulam, and the head was burned separately near the Kakkan Nagar flyover.
The Palayamkottai police initially registered two cases after the discovery of the half-burnt torso and head, but the cases were later transferred to Achanpudur, where the crime occurred. The Achanpudur police arrested Samidurai, along with S. Ayyappan, M. Ramar, P. Muthuraj alias Raj, and P. Subbaiah Pandian.
District Additional Sessions Judge Manoj Kumar, on Friday, awarded double life imprisonment to all five convicts for kidnapping and murder. They were also fined ₹25,000 each. The sentence reflects the severity of the crime, which involved premeditated murder and attempts to destroy evidence.
