Chennai: The Madras High Court had given a detailed version of the prosecution case that led to the conviction of the accused at the end of the long proceedings of Rajagopal's appeal trial in 2009. And that narration could well serve as not only the most accurate version of the crime of passion but also the most comprehensive sewing up of the various statements from the witnesses as well as the police records backed by relevant forensic investigations. A gist of that court statement would make compulsive reading now in the present circumstances.
Either besotted by her looks or on the advice of his astrologer, Rajagopal wanted to take Jeevajothi, the young daughter of one of his assistant managers as his third 'simultaneous' wife. He had married the mother of his two sons in 1972 and took away the wife of one of his employees as his second wife in 1994.
Jeevajothi rejected her father's boss but the man persisted, flooding her with gifts of jewels, clothes and lots of money to even help her open a travel agency. He also told her his second wife too had initially rejected him but after the marriage, was now 'living like a queen'.
Jeevajothi accepted the gifts but continued turning away the suitor. She was in love with her brother's math tutor Santhakumar and the two eloped in 1999. They later returned and started family in Chennai, where Rajagopal continued his wooing with gifts and pleading she should marry him leaving her husband. On September 28, 2001, Rajagopal went to the couple's place at midnight and warned Santhakumar he would come to grief if he did not leave Jeevajothi in two days.
The couple decided to flee to someplace where Rajagopal would not be able to find them but the boss's henchmen, led by restaurant manager Daniel, intercepted them. They were bundled into a car and taken to a Saravana Bhavan godown in KK Nagar, where Rajagopal gave Santhakumar a good thrashing. They were later kept in some kind of a house arrest but managed to escape on October 12 saying they were going to attend a felicitation function for Rajagopal but instead, went to the city police commissioner's office to file a complaint.
Six days later, Rajagopal's men caught the couple again and while Jeevajothi was pushed into a Mercedes that had the boss, Santhakumar was taken away. Rajagopal sneeringly brandished a photocopy of her police statement against him-a reflection of the man's clout with the rulers in the state; another example of that was when he openly bragged much later how he spent Rs 1 lakh a month to get great home-cooked food delivered to him while he was in prison.
Two days later, Santhakumar phoned his wife to tell her that Rajagopal paid Daniel Rs 5 lakh to have him killed but Daniel let him go with the advice he must flee to Mumbai. Jeevajothi asked her husband to come back so they could together plead with Rajagopal to let them live in peace.
While her conduct could seem intriguing to some as she was telling her man to walk into a pit of fire, the court felt otherwise. “It is obvious,” the court had concluded, “that their overwhelming love for each other persuaded them to take the risk.”
In any case, later that night, the couple along with Jeevajothi's parents and brother, went to meet Rajagopal at his hotel headquarters. He told them to wait in the next room and called in Daniel to quiz him what happened to Santhakumar. Since he did not know about the family's arrival for mercy plea, Daniel lied that he had tied up Santhakumar to a railway track and he was run over by a train, after which he burned his clothes to obliterate evidence. The boss then called Santhakumar into the room and asked Daniel, 'Who's this then, Santhakumar's ghost?' After this, Daniel beat up Santhakumar for the 'betrayal' and the family was put into a van to be driven to a faraway village for 'exorcism'.
Two days later, Santhakumar was taken in a car along with Daniel and they drove for several hours towards north. Forest officials found a body high in the Western Ghats near Kodaikanal on October 31. Postmortem showed that the young man had died of 'asphyxia due to throttling'. Jeevajothi later identified the body to be of her missing husband. The lungi used for throttling him was found under the seat of Daniel's car. Daniel, along with Rajagopal and six others were convicted of murder and sentenced to life. They moved an appeal before the Supreme Court and the verdict has come out finally now, though they have been granted time till July 7 to surrender and serve out the sentence.
