CASTE CRUETLY
CASTE CRUETLY:
Newly Wed Women killed by her kin
In a gruesome honour killing, a 21-year old woman was brutally murdered by her
father and relatives in Tirupur district of western Tamil Nadu on Wensday, 4th November.
Sripriya, who belonged to the Kallar community, had fallen in love with a Dalit (suppressed caste) youth, A.Badhrakali, while on internship to get her B.Ed. The couple eloped and got married in Salem on September 29.
Police and Badhrakali’s relatives said that Sripriya’s father, Srinivasan, and two relatives came to Madathukulam, near Udumalpet, on Wednesday. The newly wed couple was staying with Badhrakali’s sister in Madathukulam.
Srinivasan asked Sripriya to come to Tiruchi to visit her mother, who, he said, was ill. “She refused and told them that she would decide after her husband returned home. The trio then left. After some time, Sripriya’s two relatives returned. When my wife, Rani, and a neighbour questioned them, one man threatened them with a knife while the other stabbed Sripriya” Badhrakali’s brother-in-law, Chandrasekaran said. Sripriya received injuries to her neck, breasts and abdomen and died.
Udumalpet deputy superintendent of police C.Raja said Srinivasan (65), his nephew Asaithambi alias Rajkannan (27) and Pannadi (30) had been arrested on Thursday and booked under Section 302 of IPC. “The relationship between Sripriya and her parents was strained. Investigations revealed that the trio wanted to kill Badhrakali but he was not at home,” Raja said.
Sripriya and Bhadrakali fell in love last year while interning at a school close to his village of Azhagapuri, near Palani. Badhrakali’s relatives said they had been receiving threats ever since the couple eloped. Fearing a threat to their lives, the couple submitted a complaint at the All Women’s Police Station in Palani on October 5. The next day, Srinivasan and his relatives were summoned to the police station. After hours of discussion, Sripriya refused to leave Badhrakali. The angry parents gave an undertaking disowning her.
“I spoke to Sripriya on the phone a couple of minutes before she was murdered. She was under the impression that her father had a change of heart. We would have been more careful if we had suspected their motive,” Chandrasekar said. The girl’s body was handed over to Badhrakali’s family after the post-mortem at the Udumalpet government hospital.
“Stabbing the breasts is a brutal way of protecting the honour of the caste,” said A. Kathir, executive director of Evidence, an NGO working in the areas of caste-based discrimination and violence. This was the seventh honour killing in Tamil Nadu in the last two years.
Scriptures of Hindu religion sanctify caste discrimination on the basis of Varna Dharma social system.
