Chennai, Feb. 15: Seven years ago, three girl students had burnt to death in a bus ADMK men had set on fire. Today, the blazing protest at their leader’s conviction returned to nail a party leader and two fellow workers.

In a rare conviction of political activists, a Salem court found Nedunchezhiyan, Ravindran and P. Muniyappan guilty of murder in the February 2000 Dharmapuri bus burning case.

The ADMK workers were protesting against Jayalalithaa’s conviction in the Kodaikanal Pleasant Stay Hotel case. She was later cleared in that case by Madras High Court.

Nedunchezhiyan was then secretary of the party’s Dharmapuri unit, Ravindran was a local functionary of the MGR Forum while P. Muniyappan is a former panchayat president.

First additional sessions judge Krishnaraja also convicted 25 others of rioting and wrongful confinement after a long trial that saw many twists and turns, including the transfer of the case from a Krishnagiri court to Salem.

Only two of the 31 accused were acquitted.

The sentences will be pronounced tomorrow.

The students of the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University were returning after a study tour to a research farm near Dharmapuri when their bus was stopped by motorcycle-borne miscreants and set on fire. While 18 students jumped to safety, the three — Kokilavani, Gayathri and Hemalatha, all of them 19 — were trapped inside the bus.

Tiger boat

Chennai police today confirmed that the boat seized by the Coast Guard yesterday “belongs to the Sea Tigers wing of the LTTE”.

Of the five persons arrested, Arumainayagam Purushottaman is a Sea Tiger cadre while another accused, Sivapadhmanabhan, serves as a driver for the banned LTTE, Tamil Nadu director general of police D. Mukherjee told a news conference this evening.

Mukherjee said the boat was heading to Jaffna and “was caught by the Indian Coast Guard while evading the surveillance of the Sri Lankan Navy”.