Madurai: Nursing student killed for honour'

Madurai: In a yet another case of honour killing, a 21-year-old nursing student was done to death, allegedly by her parents and three others at Veeralampatti village in Sedapatti taluk in Madurai district.

The rural police on Saturday arrested the parents of the victim identified as Suganiya (21), a second year nursing student, and two other relatives. The police secured them based on a complaint filed by her husband G Bhoopathy (24) from Chithode village to Erode superintendent of police recently.

The girl’s parents Periyakarthikeyan (56) and Chellammal (52) along with her three sons including Chinnasamy, Pandikannan forcefully took Suganiya to a farm land, located two-km away from the village, in the midnight on April 15 and burnt her to death using petrol and rubber tyres after she was given poison and strangled, police said.

During police interrogation, the parents confessed that they murdered their daughter because she married outside their caste. The girl and the boy belong to different castes of dominant communities.

Suganiya had fallen in love with Bhoopathy from Chithode village in Erode when she went to work at Kachi Nursing Home as part of her course there.
Bhoopathy, a painter by profession, met her first when he accompanied his friend for his treatment to the hospital.   

The duo got married in January this year, said the police. When Suganiya informed her parents about their marriage, they refused to acknowledge it. Immediately her father Periyakarthikeyan accompanied by his elder son Pandikannan visited Chithode village and took her with them. Bhoopathy had not resisted their action then. However, she escaped from the house the next day and was united with her husband, police said.

Assuming that she brought disgrace to the family, Periyakarthikeyan and his son decided to kill her. In second week of April, Periyakarthikeyan along with his elder sister Lakshmi went to Chithode and invited the couple to a jallikattu event organised near their village on April 15, said the source. After Periyakarthikeyan spent three days taking part in a village festival there, he along with the couple left for Madurai on April 14. When they reached Arapalayam bus stand, the victim's brothers who were waiting in a car, took them to the village in the night hours. When the car reached near Veeralampatti village, they forced Bhoopathy to get down from the car and threatened him with dare consequences unless he left the place immediately, police said.

Bhoopathy left the place in an auto-rickshaw, which came in the opposite direction. The family then executed the murder after the jallikattu event and disposed off the girl's body, on April 15th morning. The four persons arrested so far include the victim's parents, Chinaswamy (19) and Lakshmi (19). The police are on the lookout for two other brothers involved in the case.