Two persons were awarded death sentence by the Tirunelveli Principal Sessions Court in connection with the murder of former minister and DMK leader Aladi Aruna and his friend, A Ponraj, on December 31, 2004. Arunachalam alias Aladi Aruna was a state law minister during the previous DMK regime and his daughter Poongothai Aladi Aruna is at present state minister for social welfare. In his verdict on Thursday, Tirunelveli Principal Sessions judge K Bhaskaran sentenced Bala alias S Balamurugan (33) of Tirunelveli and D Azhagar (29) of Karuvampalayam, near Tirupur, death by hanging for murder and conspiracy. The judge added that the duo can appeal against the decision in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court. Another convict, M Veldurai of Maruthappapuram, was awarded three years rigorous imprisonment for possessing illegal firearms.Earlier, the court had acquitted S A Raja, chairman of Rajas Group of Educational Institutions, and S Arumugam of Sivalaarkulam, S Paramasivan of Maruthappapuram near Alangulam, P Kannan of Vadamadurai, R Arjunan of Munnar and P Dhanasingh of Siruthondanallur in Thoothukudi district, against whom the prosecution could not prove the charges. Two among the 12 accused committed suicide, while another, ‘Dog’ Ravi, is absconding.Creating a flutter in the state, the prosecution had charged S A Raja, a prominent educationist in the state, with hiring a group of killers to murder Aruna. Aruna had started an engineering college in Tirunelveli leading to a crisis at Raja’s institution, prosecution argued. Though they were said to be close, their relationship had soured after Aruna started the college in 2001. Aruna, and his friends, A Ponraj and Socrates, were attacked at Nallur near Alangulam in Tirunelveli. Socrates managed to escape and was an eyewitness in the case.
