Sasikala surrenders, back in Bengaluru jail

Sasikala Natarajan

Bengaluru, Feb 15 – AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala, held guilty for corruption, on Wednesday surrendered before a trial court at a prison here.

Sasikala gave herself up at the Central Jail on the city’s southern outskirts with her relatives Elavarasi and V.N. Sudhakaran after reaching from Chennai by road, officials said.

As the long-time confidante of the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa reached the prison complex, clashes erupted between AIADMK supporters and police personnel.

One official said Sasikala underwent a medical check-up.

The surrender came a day after the Supreme Court upheld her conviction in a case of holding assets disproportionate to known sources of income.

Also held guilty were her two relatives — sister-in-law Elavarasi and nephew Sudhakaran, who were also sentenced for four years along with Jayalalithaa and Sasikala in September 2014.

The makeshift trial court was set up again in the jail complex earlier in the day for security reasons.

The civil court complex in the city centre is in a congested area and would have caused law and order problem due to the high-profile nature of the case and the convicts involved.

In a related development, Sasikala’s husband Natarajan and the party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, M. Thambidurai, reached the prison complex about 30 minutes before she crossed the Tamil Nadu border in a convoy.

“Though Sasikala pleaded for more time to serve the jail term, the judge declined and asked her to undergo a health check-up before 6 p.m. to enter the jail,” added the official.