For a 10-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother from a busy commercial area of Coimbatore, the morning of October 29, 2010, a Friday, broke with all promises of a joyous weekend.

As school time approached, the siblings were all set to board their regular school van. But things fell apart, in a matter of a few minutes, when they were picked up by a wrong van.

What unfolded the rest of the day were the darkest chapters of one of the most harrowing crimes in Tamil Nadu’s recent history.

Genesis of a crime

As plotted, Mohan alias Mohanakrishnan alias Mohanraj (27), a taxi driver who had an acquaintance with the siblings as a former school van driver, picked them up in a van he had hired from a friend. Mohanraj had no intention to offer the innocent siblings a ride to their school. Instead, he drove the van out of the city, where he joined his co-conspirator Manoharan (23) of Angalakurichi near Pollachi. According to investigators, the plan was to abduct the children to demand a steep ransom from the family.

Meanwhile, the news of missing siblings spread like a wildfire across Coimbatore, triggering the police to launch searches to trace the children and their abductors.

However, panic and fear of getting caught overrode the initial plans of Mohanaraj and Manoharan, and their plot took a horrific turn - they chose to eliminate the children. Before doing so, they subjected the ten-year-old girl to sexual assault while her brother was physically tortured. They drowned the children in a canal of the Parambikulam Aliyar Project (PAP).

The police recovered the girl’s body from the PAP canal at Vavipalayam near Pongalur on the same day and night. Her brother’s body was recovered from the PAP canal at Kedimedu near Pollachi the next day.

Arrest and encounter

Mohanraj was arrested on the same day of the gruesome crime while his accomplice was held two days later, for charges, including abduction, sexual assault, murder, and concealment of evidence.

The heinous crime against the two school children deeply shook the collective conscience of the public, triggering widespread anger over the state of law and order and the safety of children in Tamil Nadu. The public ire had reached the boiling point. Opposition parties blamed the then DMK government, with M. Karunanidhi at the helm as Chief Minister, for alleged failure in saving the children.

Amid widespread public demand for “instant justice”, the police were granted the custody of the two men by the jurisdictional court on November 8. The State, as many wanted, woke up to the “big news” the next morning - the first accused Mohanraj was gunned down by the police.

As per the police version, they were heading towards Pollachi with the two accused around 5:30 a.m. on November 9 to revisit the crime scene. Inspectors Kanagasabapathy and Annadurai escorted them with sub-inspectors S. Muthumalai and T. Jothi. As the police vehicle was passing through Vellalore - Podanur Road, Mohanraj snatched the pistol of Mr. Jothi and pressed it on the head of a Head Constable who was driving the vehicle. The driver refused to stop the vehicle, following which he opened fire inside the vehicle. While Mr. Jothi suffered an injury in his right arm, a bullet hit Mr. Muthumalai on his left loin.

In an act of “self-defence”, Muthumalai shot two rounds at Mohanraj, while Inspector Annadurai shot one bullet on the accused, killing him on the spot.

The then Coimbatore City Police Commissioner C. Sylendra Babu said the swift action by the police foiled the escape bid of a criminal.

Mr. Babu and his team were widely hailed by people who had been demanding “instant justice”, hailing him as “super cop”. But the police ‘encounter’ equally drew scrutiny from civil rights groups. The case regarding the encounter was transferred to the Crime Branch CID for an independent probe. Years later, the Madras High Court dismissed a plea seeking murder charges against the police officers, ruling that the shooting fell entirely under the right of private defence as protected by law.

Trial of lone surviving accused

Manoharan faced the trial in the Coimbatore Mahila Court. On October 29, 2012, marking exactly the second anniversary of the heinous crime, the Mahila Court Judge M.P. Subramanian found Manoharan guilty on all counts, including conspiracy, kidnapping for ransom, sexual assault, murder, and destruction of evidence. Holding it “rarest of rare” crime, the court awarded double death penalty and three concurrent life sentences to Manoharan on November 1, 2012.

The Supreme Court, on August 1, 2019, confirmed the death sentence of Manoharan, finding the case to be of the “rarest of rare category”.

“The incident took place before the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act came into force. The case was registered under Sections of the IPC. The police team could exhibit its best investigation skills in the case, which did not have any eyewitnesses for rape and the murders,” Mr. Muthumalai had told The Hindu, welcoming the apex court verdict.