All you need to know about Hyderabad honour killing

55-year-old T Maruthi Rao's love for his daughter not only ruined him, but also his daughter, her Dalit husband Pranay, who had to pay the price with his life, and the family honour.
Maruthi Rao funeral procession at Miryalguda on Monday. (Photo| EPS)
Maruthi Rao funeral procession at Miryalguda on Monday. (Photo| EPS)

No one envies 55-year-old real-estate businessman T Maruthi Rao. He ended his life on Sunday in Hyderabad, admitting defeat in getting his daughter Amrutha back, whom he doted on, all his life. His love for his daughter not only ruined him, but also his daughter, her Dalit husband Pranay, who had to pay the price with his life, and the family honour.

He threatened his daughter, disapproved of her wedding with Dalit boy Pranay, whom she knew since she was in Class IX, and finally he had him killed in 2018. For this, Maruthi Rao, an upper caste Vysya, had to go to jail and spend about seven months there.

He came out and committed suicide on Sunday when her daughter refused to return to him. By acting the way he did, he thought he would be salvaging his family’s honour, but it only sank further with people looking down upon him for having his son-in-law killed.

As for his daughter Amrutha, by hating her father for getting her husband killed, lost him in the end. Though she tried to see his mortal remains on Monday in Miryalaguda, their relatives shouted at her. Helpless, she returned home.

She may have tried to attend the funeral, but her hatred seems to have not dissipated, as, while speaking to media persons later, she referred to her father as Maruthi Rao, and not daddy.Her father, migrated to Miryalaguda from AP in 1990 and became a kerosene dealer. By 2000, he transformed into a real estate businessman, earning both money and fame.

Meanwhile, the friendship between Amrutha and Pranay, who were in the same school since childhood, blossomed into love and both of them got married on January 31, 2018 despite her father opposing it fiercely as he thought the wedding would be a blot on the family’s honour.

The seeds for the acts of violence that were to happen later were sown when their marriage procession stopped for more time than necessary in front of Maruthi Rao’s office and residence where Dalit boys danced in celebration of an upper caste girl marrying one of them with an intention to taunt him, which further infuriated him further.

On the fateful day of September 14, 2018, a Bihari youth, hired by Maruthi Rao for Rs 1 crore, hacked Pranay in broad daylight as he was exiting a hospital in Miryalaguda along with his pregnant wife which set off events in the lives of both the father and the daughter which were beyond their control.

On that day, fighting back tears, Amrutha had said that if her father came in front of her, she would kill him. Though her in-laws welcomed her into their family though they lost their son, life had become an endless nightmare for her thereafter.

The police who were on the hot trail of Maruthi Rao arrested him and a few others under Golconda Police Station limits in Hyderabad the next day and sent them to judicial remand. Maruthi Rao, the main accused in the murder of Pranay, had to spend seven horrible months in jail before he got out on bail.

But six months later, he had to go back to jail after Amrutha lodged a complaint against him that he was trying to influence her into withdrawing the murder complaint against him. He had all the money in the world, he was said to be worth `500 crore, but it could not come to his rescue.

After his release from jail on bail again, he led a disturbed life. He became a recluse. He is understood to have told his friends that he had done something horrible, implying killing his son-in-law. Later, depression took over him.

Even before the court could try and punish him, he punished himself by ending his life by eating food laced with poison. In this story, there are no winners, but all are losers — Maruthi Rao commits suicide, his daughter loses her father and her husband, her in-laws lose their son, and finally the honour for which Maruthi Rao did all this, came to nothing.

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The New Indian Express
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