Justice for Muthulakshmi

This is to bring to your kind attention the plight of Mrs. Muthulakshmi Veerappan, widow of the late sandalwood smuggler Veerappan and mother of two. She has been languishing in your state’s prison for over a year now.
When she was brought to the court last month, she pleaded her innocence and said you were her only hope.
The case has been dragging in the courts and even your state’s High Court has down her bail pleas.
We would like to point out that she was arrested on , a full four years after her husband died in some questionable circumstances at the hands of the Tamil Nadu police. Whether he was killed in cold blood or he was shot dead in the course of clashes is still not clear.
While we are not holding any brief for any of the activities for Veerappan, we mention the circumstances of his death only to stress that Tamil Nadu has not exactly been above board in dealing with him and there are disturbing signs that your government could be following in dealing with his wife.
The Karnataka police had arrested Muthulakshmi on the night of December 25 last year at her residence in Mettur in Tamil Nadu based on a warrant issued by Chamrajnagar principal and session judge. Four others Srinivasan, Ponnusamy, Paswa and Tailor Mani were also arrested in the subsequent days. All of them are now in the Mysore central jail.
A nine-member fact-finding team comprising activists representing different human rights groups, including professor A Marx and G Sugumaran, met Muthulakshmi in jail on April 22.
The team has pointed out that trial in all these cases has already been completed. While Veerappan was killed by the STF, 109 accused were acquitted and 8 convicted in these cases. "For the past 18 years and during the trial of the above cases, the Karnataka police never made any efforts to bring Muthulakshmi to face trial, even though they often intimidated her that there was a warrant pending against her. Suddenly in December last they arrested her and implicated her in these four cases and even invoked the repealed draconian TADA against her," the team said in its report.
According to the activists, the Karnataka police have arrested Muthulakshmi only because she was actively involved in demanding compensation for victims of excesses committed by the personnel of the special task forces, who were hunting for Veerappan.
Taking these facts into account, the activists demanded the immediate release of Muthulakshmi and four others.
There has not been any known instance of her having colluded with Veerappan in any of the crimes attributed to him – her crime was that she allowed herself to be talked into marriage with an outlaw.
More than anything else it is unfair to accuse a helpless woman of crimes her husband had been charged with, without a shred of evidence and persecute her only because she had happened to marry the man in question.
Her two daughters, both in their teens, have had a traumatic life all these years for no fault of theirs. Now they are being deprived of their sole emotional support.
In the circumstances we would request you to intervene, have the cases against Muthulakshmi dropped or at least fast track the cases against her and render her justice.