Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MG Ramachandran’s adopted daughter N Banu Sridhar and six others were sentenced to life by a sessions court in Chennai on Wednesday for the murder of his son-in-law Vijayan, The News Minute reported. After the Principal Sessions Court’s verdict, Vijayan’s wife Sudha, who had also been adopted by MGR, said, “I am thankful to the police and media. My husband will finally get justice.”

The seven pleaded innocence, but Principal district judge G Jayachandran dismissed their claims. They will be taken to Central Prison in Puzhal town immediately. One of them may be shifted to Vellore on Thursday, depending on availability of space in the prison, The Times of India reported.

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Vijayan was beaten to death in Chennai’s Alwarpet area on June 4, 2008. Banu had reportedly paid a constable, Karuna, Rs 4 lakh to execute the murder. Karuna, in turn, had hired five others to help with the task. The hired men had forced Vijayan to step out of his car, after which they repeatedly drove into his vehicle while two of them proceeded to hit him with an iron pipe.

MGR had adopted his wife Janaki’s brother’s seven children, who later got into a bitter feud over hundreds of crores of property MGR left behind. The political leader died in 1987. Banu Sridhar believed that Vijayan had pushed her brother Raja to take her to court over control of Janaki Ramachandran Matriculation School, one of the schools run by the family. Sridhar was the school’s principal.

The case was taken over by the Crime Branch of the Crime Investigation Department. It was initially investigated by local Abhiramapuram police. CB-CID had unearthed Sridhar’s connection with Vijayan’s murder. More than 70 witnesses were questioned by the CB-CID, which had filed a chargesheet against all seven accused.