MADURAI: Women victimised by honour killings in the State narrated their tales of woe during a public hearing in the city on Saturday. Kausalya, the caste Hindu whose Dalit husband Sankar was done to death allegedly at the instigation of her parents, at Udumalaipettai recently, said police should act responsibly when they receive complaints of life threat.
She said she had been facing opposition from her family since she got married to Sankar. “Though Sankar’s life was under threat from the people belonging to my parents’ community, the police failed to register cases despite approaching them thrice for help. Their neglect led to my husband’s murder,” she said. Claiming that she is not aware of the details about the trial in the case, Kausalya urged the government to appoint a prosecutor of her choice.
A Vincent Kathir, the executive director of Evidence, an NGO, which conducted the public hearing claimed, “Though the court has examined 98 out of 121 witnesses in the case in which 11 have been arrested, the government has not yet appointed a prosecutor of Kausalya’s choice under the provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.”
Swarnavalli, mother of a deceased Dalit woman Amirthavalli who was murdered along with her caste Hindu husband Palaniappan and their baby allegedly by the latter’s kin in Keelamathur in Tiruvarur district in 2014, said the killers have not been punished yet as the case is pending in court.
“Women from my son-in-law’s family keep abusing my family members and this is very painful,” Swarnavalli lamented.
Kathir claimed that the police initially registered it as a murder case despite Palaniappan’s brother confessing to the crime, but when NGOs intervened, the SC/ST Act was invoked.