Police look the other way as kangaroo courts pass death verdicts. Jaya Menon travels through the caste-sensitive districts of TN to get the real picture of the horror
Acharred piece of earth and some bits of bones are the only signs of a dastardly killing in the name of honour. No other evidence remains of the spine-chilling crime to mar the rustic charm of Maalaipatti village, perched among the green mountains of the Western Ghats in Dindigul district. On July 28, 2008, a few days after being chained in a bathroom and treated like a rabid dog outside her terraced house, tortured and beaten up with a log, young Sangeetha, barely conscious, was burnt to death by her family members near a dry water channel running through a field. The dalit youths, who were called to conduct the last rites, recall in horror how the terrified, emaciated girl had regained consciousness as the flames engulfed her, shouting for help.
The village, in which the intermediate Naicker caste is the dominant community, then purged itself – the floors of the houses were scrubbed clean with detergent and water, and the walls whitewashed. The local Mariamman temple too got a fresh coat of paint. The village had decreed that Sangeetha should die for bringing shame to her community by eloping with a dalit boy from the village.
But the police of the Vilampatti station, barely a km from the village, claim ignorance about the incident. They have, in fact, “dropped action” in the case. Vilampatti circle inspector, D Sakkarai says, “We have closed the case. We found clear evidence that the girl had committed suicide.” Then why had relatives hurriedly cremated the body without even informing the police? “Yes, that is the only unresolved issue,” he admits.
Sub-inspector Geetha Devi of the Nilakkottai all-woman police station, who had been instrumental in tracking the lovers and getting them back to their families, says, “If I had know that such a fate awaited Sangeetha I would never have got them back to the village.”
Even two years after the incident, scribes visiting the village are viewed with suspicion and hostility. “The family has suffered enough,” said a Maalaiaatti resident belonging to the Naicker caste sullenly when asked about the incident. Residents in the colony of dalits in neighbouring Ethilodu talk in hushed tones about how the Naickers had conspired to kill the girl from their own community for daring to elope with a dalit youth.
A couple of days before Sangeetha was burnt alive, allegedly by her own family, Maalaipatti’s dominant caste gathered in the square, not in their own village but in Pullakaadupatti, a km or two away, to hold court and decide how to purge the slur brought upon them by the girl. It did not take long for the elders, hardened by caste sentiments, to arrive at a verdict. “They decided to kill the girl. They burnt her alive,” said a shocked N Kamalanathan, panchayat president of Ethilodu, neighbouring Maalaipatti, shrugging helplessness. The youth, K Balachander (20), whom Sangeetha wished to marry, hailed from Ethilodu.
The shocking spectacle of caste leaders and elders holding kangaroo courts, huddled in the ‘manthai’ (a low-slung, tile-roofed structure) in the village square and passing death verdicts on those who dare to violate the caste diktat is nothing new in Tamil Nadu’s rural areas. “It is a custom so ingrained in the village system that few dare to question it,” says A Kathir of Evidence. “The parents of the girls or boys who rebel and fall in love or marry out of caste are blamed for the ‘shame’ brought on the village and in many cases, they are pressured to murder their ‘errant’ son or daughter or drive them to suicide.”
“There are several such cases that take place, many of them are not brought to our notice,” admits P Murugadasan, inspector of the Manamadurai (Sivaganga district) police station and investigating another incident of honour killing, the Megala case.
“Though both Shiva and Megala were from the same caste, their marriage was considered a dishonour for the family as the girl had been forced to marry a relative a few days before she decided to elope with Shiva. The family and relatives had hatched a plot to kill them both. It was fortunate that Megala escaped,” says T Manoharan (45), Shiva’s uncle from Kattikulam.
“What’s more shocking is the fact that the police turn a blind eye when such killings take place. By turning their backs, they, in fact, encourage such killings,” says Chennaibased Daniel Selvakumar (29), a dalit Christian, fighting for justice in the case of his wife’s death. Sathura (24), hailing from the Thevar community of Vadachery village in Thanjavur had been lured by her family to come back home with the promise that their marriage would be conducted according to Hindu rituals. On March 23, Daniel was informed that his wife had committed suicide. Police harassed the youth when he rushed to the village and refused to allow him to even see his wife’s body.
“I showed him pictures of her body. Her left ear had turned blue. We are not sure if she poured poison into her ear herself or if someone else did it,” said then Thanjavur superintendent of police, now in Chennai’s cyber crime, G Sampath.
LEGACY OF HATRED:
(clockwise from top to Right) Karupayee, Shiva’s mother, is yet to recover from the murder of her son; Balachander’s parents, Kandasamy and Leela, who fled their village in fear have returned but their son never wants to return; A distraught Megala was brought to Chennai by her grandparents
Case buried along with girl as police turn blind eye
Perched on the edge of a highway, Nilakkottai in Dindigul district, is a picture postcard village. But, the neat row of tiled houses, clean mud roads and the comforting picture of quiet rural life belie caste turmoil. Just six months ago, this pastoral calm had been rudely shattered.In March this year, elders gathered under the ‘manthai’ in the village centre. Twentytwo-year-old Dhanam and dalit youth Vinoth Kumar (27) were summoned for the ‘hearing’. The village dominated by families belonging to the Thevar sect of ‘piramalai kallar’ was shocked that Dhanam, a nurse in a hospital in Chennai, had dared to fall in love with the dalit youth and worse even live with him, defying tradition and caste taboo.
Violent scenes were witnessed in the tiny village square, flanked by a huge water tank and a primary health centre. The young couple were beaten up by the villagers, who ordered Vinoth’s family to leave the village and never to return. Dhanam’s mother Mariammai was not spared too as villagers beat her up and even broke one of her arms for “supporting her daughter and bringing her up in such a fashion”. Her father, A Muthusamy, joined the villagers in punishing his family.
On March 9, the village gathered outside at Jallipatti, on the village edge, in a small clearing beside the highway. A small group of elders then decided it would be the wisest thing “to remove the blot” on the village. Muthusamy was asked to “take a decision”. According to the village panchayat ward councillor and Dhanam’s uncle E Ayyappan (26), in the early hours of March 12, the girl was taken by her father to their garden across the highway. “Muthusamy kept a bottle of poison on the ground and told his daughter that either she should take it or he would consume it as he could not live down the shame. Dhanam drank it up,” said Ayyappan.
Three family members then carried Dhanam’s body back to the village, to a small patch of ground used by the villagers as a cremation ground. Truck tyres were placed on the body to make it burn faster and then it was set on fire. Today, a burnt patch and some pieces of bones are all that remain of a shocking death. “Though we have two police constables living in our village, the case was completely hushed up,” said Ayyappan.
Nilakottai panchayat president A Seeman is yet to get over the shock. “The issue was not brought to me. We didn’t know what happened until after the incident. We only heard that the
girl was forced to marry her relative. But she was with him for about five days and then ran away again with the dalit youth. She was tracked and brought back by the villagers and the next thing we knew, she was dead,” he said. The Nilakottai police plead ignorance.
DGP Letika Saran has promised action if the details of the case are faxed to her office. “We register all such cases as murders. All the conspirators too are charged with murder. It can be a case of suspicious death. But as soon as we get evidence pointing to murder, we alter the IPC sections accordingly,” she told The Times of India. But stern police action in some cases have failed to act as deterrent for villages cocooned in their own laws.
Honour killing: Women murdered or driven to suicide
Honour killings are usually recorded as murders or suicides, but activists are beginning to take notice as a number of these killings of men and women who have married across caste lines are in districts that are categorised as ‘caste-sensitive’ by the police.“In five of the six cases of honour killing in the state in the last three months, it is the women who were either murdered or driven to suicide,” Kathir said.
As the Centre mulls an amendment to the Indian Evidence Act (in the wake of a recent rash of ‘honour’ killings in the north, instigated by khap panchayats), which seeks to put the onus on the caste councils to prove their innocence and make them equally culpable, murders and instigated suicides to uphold ‘honour’ continue in Tamil Nadu's castesensitive southern districts.
According to CPM state secretariat member P Sampath, attempts by successive governments to bridge inter-caste hostility—with measures such as the statesponsored social justice tea parties, samathuvapurams (egalitarian colonies) and cash incentives for intercaste marriages—have been mere cosmetic efforts that fail to hide the lack of political will. “The government is neither keen on a legislation nor do they have a proper social outlook. They see caste-related issues as a law and order problem,” says Sampath.
In some cases, police who have a crucial role to play in creating awareness, help to hide the crime, registering killings as suicides. “There has to be social awareness,” admits DGP Letika Saran, who feels the media has a “greater role” to play in this.
Victim Sangeetha
The 21-year-old Naicker girl fell in love with dalit youth Balachander, as they both went to college in the same bus. They decided to elope after realising her parents would never agree to their marriage CRIME NO 96/2008, Dindigul District
There is little evidence now of the gruesome death of a young girl which took place two years ago in Maalaipatti village in Dindigul district. Villagers say Sangeetha, who was tortured and beaten for about two days, was administered poison and then burnt alive. The Naicker-dominated village, which had held court two days before the incident, to pass the ‘death’ verdict, then purged itself. Houses were cleaned and whitewashed. The village had decreed that Sangeetha die for bringing shame to her community by eloping with a dalit. But police claimed they found evidence that the girl had hanged herself.
STATUS: Though initially the VCK took up the case, demanding an inquiry, the Vilampatti police station subsequently dropped the case
Victim Shiva
Shiva’s family claims he had kept away from Megala after she was married to her uncle. But she eloped with Shiva. They lived together for about 25 days before he was killed by her family CRIME NO 266/2010, Sivaganga District
It was a murder that shook Kattikulam, near Madurai. Megala’s 21-year-old husband, Shiva, was hacked to death. Megala, having escaped being murdered herself and now in the ‘custody’ of her grandparents in Chennai, is the only complainant. Few know her whereabouts, including the Manamadurai police tracking the case. The investigating officer says such killings are quite common, a few don’t even reach police stations. The officer is yet to get a copy of the tape from TV channels which recorded a statement of Megala, a crucial piece evidence to the gruesome murder.
STATUS: The murder is under investigation and Megala’s father, brother and uncle are lodged in prison. Shiva’s siblings have threatened retribution
Victim Sathura The Thevar girl met her husband Daniel, a dalit Christian, in a multinational bank where they worked together. Her parents promised to conduct their wedding. But she was allegedly fed poison CRIME NO 77/2009, Thanjavur District
Sathura (24), a Thevar girl, who married dalit Christian Daniel against her family’s wishes, was persuaded by her parents to go back to their Vadachery village in Thanjavur district for a wedding according to Hindu rituals. Daniel was to join her later. A few days after Daniel last saw her, Sathura messaged him to say her family was “behaving strangely”. Daniel was later informed that she was dead, but was never shown his wife’s body. Daniel has accused Sathura’s parents of poisoning her. The local police declined to cooperate and even show him the body of his wife.
STATUS: After Daniel petitioned the court, the case was altered from one of suicide to one of abetting suicide and handed over to CB-CID
Source: The Times of India 20.09.10
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