DHARMAPURI: On Monday, when Dharmapuri Principal District Judge S Kumaraguru prepares to deliver the verdict in what has come to be known as the sensational Vachathi case, an entire tribal village would be praying to Goddess Mariamman that justice should prevail.Simultaneously, over 200 serving and retired government servants, a large number of them belonging to the forest and police departments, would be waiting anxiously for a verdict that could make or mar their lives and careers.The eagerly awaited judgment in the case investigated by the CBI on the direction of the Madras High Court will be delivered 19 years and three months after 18 women were allegedly raped, nearly 100 villagers brutally beaten up and arrested and an entire village turned into a ghost town by forest and police personnel. All the victims belong to the Adivasi tribe.To this day, the villagers of Vachathi, a sleepy hamlet at the foothills of the Sitheri Hills around 12 km from Harur in Dharmapuri district, graphically recall with horror the happenings of June 20-22, 1992.On June 20, 1992, about 155 forest personnel and 108 policemen and six revenue department officials raided Vachathi searching for sandalwood, allegedly hidden by villagers. In the name of inquiry, the villagers, mainly women, were dragged out of their homes and fields, assembled under a banyan tree where they were allegedly beaten up mercilessly before being bundled out to the Forest Ranger’s office in Harur where they were allegedly subjected to savage brutality.
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