6 sentenced for preventing Dalit cook from preparing food for schoolkids in TN's Tirupur

Six persons were sentenced to two years of imprisonment by a court here for preventing a Dalit woman cook from preparing food for children at a government school in 2018.

The special court trying cases under the SC/ST Act handed out the punishment to P Palanisamy Gounder, N Sakthivel, R Shanmugam, C Vellingiri, A Duraisamy, and V Seetha Lakshmi for caste discrimination and other offences.

According to the prosecution, P Pappal, aged 44, a cook at the Government Higher Secondary School in Thirumalai Goundampalayam, in the district, had faced discrimination at the hands of the six persons, who were parents. The latter had objected to her cooking the food for the children.

There were protests by members of the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front against her discrimination and her subsequent transfer.

A complaint was later lodged on behalf of Pappal, a resident of Thirumalai Goundampalayam in July the same year. Following this, the Cheyur police registered a case against 35 persons under various provisions of the SC/ST Act and arrested eight of them.

During the trial on Friday, Judicial Magistrate M Suresh convicted six and sentenced them to two years of jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on each. Twenty-five others were acquitted due to lack of evidence while four died during the trial. All six have been lodged at the Coimbatore Central Prison.

Senior advocate PP Mohan, who represented Pappal, later told reporters that the BDO and some police officials who had transferred the cook following protests by a section of parents needed to be punished in order to render complete justice to the victim.