The Mettur Sub Court on Thursday sentenced nine persons to five years in jail for assaulting a farmer in 2019. According to the prosecution, the convicts, residents of Koonandiyur near Mecheri, tied a farmer, V. Sampath (62) from the same locality, to an electric pole and assaulted him on June 3, 2019.

Subsequently, the Mecheri police booked and arrested N. Arivazhagan (47), M. Krishnan (42), M. Raju (68), G. Rathinavel (36), M. Vijayakumar (36), M. Shanmugam (56), G. Vettrivel (31), M. Govindasamy (78), G. Chinnadurai (40), E. Samidurai (36) and E. Sakthivel (37). During the course of the trial, Krishnan and Raju died. The sentencing of the remaining nine took place on Thursday.

The court also fined the convicts between ₹1,500 and ₹2,500 each.