MADURAI: For 14 years, Angammal, whose modesty was allegedly outraged in custody, suffered in silence as she waited for justice.On Monday, she was forced to relive the humiliation and torture she underwent at the hands of policemen during the trial at the Fast Track Court III in Madurai. For, apart from the judge, a typist and a few female relatives, the court hall was packed with men.Angammal had to narrate the sordid details of her ordeal at the Oomachikulam police station in 1998 even as her alleged tormentors listened to her with no apparent sense of remorse. Nine policemen were listed as accused in the case of whom one, Dhanushkodi, died during the course of the trial. The others, M P Mahalingam, A Ganasekaran, C Singalan, C Gunabalan, Ramaswamy, S Sankar, Jeyaraj and Ganeshkumar, were present in the court and appeared lost in thought.At the end of her deposition, Angammal, now 47, rushed back to her seat and began sobbing as relatives consoled her. “Have I narrated the entire story?” she asked one of her relatives in a hushed tone, who simply nodded. Angammal’s trauma is far from over. On a request from the defence counsel, the judge has put off her cross-examination to Tuesday, when she will be one again forced to recall every minute detail of the crime, while the defence lawyer tries to discredit her story.During the trial, special public prosecutor P Chinnaraja submitted a letter from local authorities, which said that Angammal was not a resident of Krishanapuram near Usilampatti.This despite the fact that Chinnaraja pointed out that the then Revenue Divisional Officer Kathiresan had, in his inquiry report, held that she was picked up by police from her house in Krishnapuram on July 27, 1998.On August 2, the police admitted her husband Kuruvaiya to a private clinic in Usilampatti, where he died.
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