DNA endorses woman's claim that she is alive

With the DNA test report endorsing the claim of a woman that she has not been murdered in 2002, the Madras High Court has ordered a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each to four persons arrested in connection with the case.
Justice S Nagamuthu of the Madurai bench of the HC also set aside the order of a district court in Tuticorin which had concluded that the woman, Mekala, had been murdered. The lower court had, however, acquitted all the four accused.
The Judge, however, refused to take criminal action against the police personnel who wrongly declared the woman dead, saying their finding was based on superimposition results and they could not be blamed for the same.

He said the government should give the compensation to the four persons, who were detained in prison for 93 days, and causing mental agony.
On July 6 last, the Judge had ordered Mekala and her father to undergo the DNA test.
The DNA test report confirmed that the woman's claim that she was alive and she had not been murdered.

The tests were conducted on Mekala and her father Muthu.
The matter came to the high court when two persons, arrested in connection with the 'murder', sought compensation for malicious prosecution and registration of criminal cases against the concerned police personnel.

Nine years after the woman was 'murdered', she had appeared before the District Collector in 2011, in a dramatic twist to the case.