Nearly a year after the brutal murder of Infosys employee Swathi at the Nungambakkam railway station in Chennai in broad daylight, a city court has accepted the report submitted by the police asking that the case be closed, as the only accused, Ramkumar, is dead. 

The IV Metropolitan Magistrate BC Gopinath accepted the report and also issued an order to formally close the case.

An investigating officer in the case told The Times of India that they had submitted a closure report before the magistrate court in Egmore with substantial evidence proving that Ramkumar’s death was a suicide.

On June 24, 2016, Swathi was brutally murdered allegedly by the accused Ramkumar at the Nungambakkam railway station for rejecting his advances. It was also reported that he had stalked her for months, and that her friends and family knew about it.

After an intensive manhunt, Ramkumar was arrested from his native town in Tirunelveli district on July 1, 2016. The case which shocked Tamil Nadu and ignited discussions on violence against women, took another turn when Ramkumar supposedly tried to slit his own throat in a bid to commit suicide.  He was hospitalized immediately and his life was saved.

Right from the beginning of the case, there were numerous conspiracy theories about the victim and the accused. There was also a strong narrative of caste built into the discussions since Swathi was Brahmin and Ramkumar was Dalit. Further, a Muslim friend of Swathi's was dragged into the rumours that were doing the rounds as the investigations progressed. Politicians and celebrities added their voices to the clamour.

Ramkumar's family claimed their son was being framed for a crime that he had not committed. However, the case came to an abrupt end when the accused died in Puzhal prison on September 19, 2016. According to the police, Ramkumar committed suicide by biting a live wire. His death once again sparked off protests and conspiracy theories with his family claiming that the police had murdered him to cover-up the fact that they'd arrested the wrong person.

Meanwhile, yet another controversy in underway over a new film based on the case.

On Saturday, the Chennai police Cyber Crime Bureau registered a case against a filmmaker Ramesh Selvan for making a movie on the Swathi murder case without obtaining consent from Swathi’s family, and also because the case was sub-judice. 

Swathi’s father K Santhanagopalakrishnan had filed a complaint with the Director General of Police on May 31, two days after the trailer of the movie was released.  "We are unable to gauge the intention of producing such a movie, as the facts can be twisted particularly about my daughter. Since the case is sub-judice, production of such a film is not fair and illegal," the complaint reads.