City court convicts three Bawaria gang members for the murder of MLA Sudarsanam

Nearly 20 years after former Minister and AIADMK MLA K. Sudarsanam was shot dead by a gang near Chennai, a city sessions court on Friday (November 21, 2025) convicted three members of the Bawaria gang on the charges of dacoity and murder for gain. The quantum of sentence will be pronounced on Monday (November 24, 2025), judge Abraham Lincoln said. In the early hours of January 8, 2005, the gang descended on the house of Sudarsanam, 57, then sitting MLA for Gummidipoondi, at Thanakulam near Periyapalayam in Tiruvallur district. While one stood outside holding a gun, the other members broke open the front door with an axe and began attacking the occupants with iron rods. Sudarsanam’s son Satish Kumar, 28, was the first to wake up and was attacked. On hearing his cries, Sudarsanam came down from his room and tried to prevent the six assailants from attacking his son. He was shot dead with a single-barrel muzzle-loaded gun. He died on the spot. Another son, Vijay, was locked up in a room. The gang escaped with cash, jewellery, and mobile phones. The gang leader, who had positioned himself outside the house, fired at neighbours who had gathered after hearing the screams and chased them away. The gang members escaped under the cover of darkness and boarded a lorry they had parked one kilometre away. Immediately after the murder, a special team was formed under Inspector-General of Police (North) S.R. Jangid. The team found a pattern in several cases that had occurred between 1995 and 2005, all showing the handiwork of a gang suspected to be from North India. The police later arrested the Bawaria gang members in Haryana and Rajasthan. The police found that between 1995 and 2005, a series of sensational highway dacoities and murders for gain had taken place. The gang had committed 24 dacoities in Tamil Nadu, in which 13 persons were killed and 63 were injured, most of them seriously. Jewellery and cash worth over ₹2 crore were looted. The gang had also struck terror in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. In the Sudarsanam murder case, the Periyapalayam police arrested nine members of the Bawaria gang, including Oma alias Omprakash and Boora alias Gunthanlal, along with three women. Oma and Boora later died of illness while serving life imprisonment at the Vellore Central Prison in another case: the dacoity and murder of a doctor at Ranipet. Four persons were tried as the case was split up after three women accused absconded. The charge sheet was filed in 2006 under Sections 395 (dacoity), 396 (dacoity with murder), and 397 (robbery or dacoity causing death or grievous hurt) of the Indian Penal Code, along with provisions of the Arms Act. The trial was conducted by Additional Government Advocate G. Srinivasan before the XV Additional Sessions Court. The four accused were produced before the judge at Singaravelar Maligai on Friday. The judge convicted three of them — Jagadish alias Gunna and Rakesh alias Guddu of Haryana and Ashok alias Laxman of Bharatpur district in Rajasthan.