Tamil Nadu   

Drive to apprehend convicts at large

CHENNAI/MADURAI: The police have launched a drive to nab those who were convicted in heinous crimes and evaded arrest after their appeal in the High Court was dismissed.

Additional Director-General of Police (Law and Order) K. Vijay Kumar has ordered that special teams be formed to track down such convicts. At least 60 convicts have been evading arrest even after their sentences were confirmed by the High Court, police sources said. Many convicts, who were awarded life sentence for murder and lodged in central prisons, got released on bail while their appeal was pending in the High Court. After the High Court upheld the trial court’s judgment and dismissed their plea, they evaded arrest.

Mr. Vijay Kumar, who reviewed the law and order in the southern districts recently, instructed police officers to secure all the convicts, who were out on bail pending appeal, and produce them before the sessions’ courts following the High Court’s confirmation of their sentences.

“Many convicts, who had appealed in the High Court against the trial courts’ verdict, were on bail for several years. Despite the High Court’s confirmation of the sentences, they did not surrender in the courts, or they were absconding,” a police official said.

Referring to instances in which convicts got away without serving their sentences, the official said an important functionary of the banned Al-Umma was convicted for three years in a case. He was released on bail while his appeal was pending. Though the appellate authority confirmed the sentence, the convict neither surrendered nor was he arrested. “Though he was arrested in other cases later and lodged in prison for years, he did not serve the three-year sentence,” he said. In another case, the officer said, two brothers wanted in the murder of a constable in Chennai were held after 12 years.

The sources said that in Tirunelveli and on its periphery, 20 convicts had to be secured after the High Court confirmed their sentences.

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