The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court while confirming the life sentence imposed on a man by a trial court for murdering a third year engineering student in 2016 expressed its disappointment on the attitude of students who were examined as eyewitnesses and had chosen to become hostile witnesses.

A Division Bench of Justices N. Anand Venkatesh and K.K. Ramakrishnan said this is an unfortunate case where a girl student who used to be close to the accused person chose to abstain herself for some reasons. The accused person was not able to digest this.

The court said it had become a trend in recent times where a boy, who gets rejected in a relationship, thinks that a girl is bound to continue with the relationship failing which he will be justified in even killing the girl. Many incidents of this nature have taken place in the recent past.

The motive in this case is the broken relationship between the deceased and the accused and the disgruntled accused person barged into the college and attacked the deceased. This perfectly falls in line with the case projected by the prosecution and there is absolutely no reason to doubt this version given by the prosecution, the court said.

The court said it had to necessarily express its disappointment on the attitude of the students, who were examined as eyewitnesses and who had chosen to become hostile witnesses. In the first place, no attempt was made by any student to prevent the accused person from carrying out the attack.

Even after the incident, no attempt was made by the students to overpower the accused person. Even if the students were not forthcoming to act in this manner, the minimum they should have done is to have spoken before the court, the court said.

The student community must understand that it is only a matter of time that a similar incident may happen to any student in a college in such a gruesome fashion. There is no use in merely expressing dissent and expressing views in social media and it has to translate itself into action or else the students will only become paper tigers in real life, the court said.

With a heavy heart, the court has to hold that the students had let down the deceased by not supporting the case of the prosecution and thus they failed in their duty to uphold truth. This is the type of attitude that was exhibited by the so-called educated students, who were doing Engineering. The education did not really build up a character to the students and rather each of the students, who turned hostile, exhibited pusillanimity, the court said.

The court was hearing an appeal filed by Udayakumar of Karur district who was sentenced to life by the Mahila Court in Karur for the murder of Engineering student Sonali.

The case of the prosecution was that Sonali was close to Udayakumar for some time. Later, she abstained from being close to him. As a result, he became agitated.

Sonali was studying in Karur College of Engineering. Udhayakumar also used to study in the same college and in the same branch as Sonali. Due to lack of attendance, he was debarred from writing the exams. He discontinued his studies.

On August 30, 2016, Udayakumar trespassed into the classroom and assaulted Sonali with a wooden log. She sustained grievous injuries and later succumbed to the injuries at the hospital. Udayakumar also attacked an Assistant Professor who came to the rescue of Sonali. Udayakumar had intimidated those in the classroom and fled the scene.