Coimbatore: The newly married couple, Kausalya and Shankar. had gone shopping happily to buy clothes for Shankar’s birthday on April 9. But Shankar did not live to celebrate his birthday.
When the couple returned from shopping after buying clothes, a three-member gang hacked him to death in full public view. Kausalya too was attacked on her head and she is now battling for life in the government hospital in Coimbatore.
Lying on the hospital bed with bandage around her head, Kausalya is inconsolable. The 19-year-old girl insists that it was a case of brutal honour killing by her family. “Police should arrest my mother, father, grandmother and my uncle and a few more relatives are responsible for my husband’s death. They should be arrested. And my parents should be hanged,” cries Kausalya.
As Shankar was a Dalit and she belonged to upper caste, her parents did not accept her love marriage and threatened to kill her husband repeatedly, Kausalya said.
Between sobs, she narrated her tale of love and tragedy to the media: “I got married to Shankar eight months back. From day one, my family started creating trouble.
My mother, father, my grand mother, my uncle started to threaten that they would kill us soon. We lodged an oral complaint at Udumalpet All Women police station. The police did not take our complaint seriously.”
A couple of weeks ago, Kowsalya’s parents came to her house and forced her leave her husband. When she refused, they threatened to kill Kausalya’s husband.
“I told my parents that I will enter my dad’s house with my husband if they are ready to accept us as husband and wife. My parents threatened that they will kill my husband.”
Fearing that her parents would kidnap her, she quit her college studies and started to work. On the fatal Sunday, she and her husband went shopping to buy dresses for his birthday, which falls on 9 April. “After purchase, we were heading for Udumalpet bus stand to return home.
Meanwhile, three men came on motorbike and attacked me. I fell down after the first blow when the sickle landed on my head, and it was not a vertical cut. So the sickle did not go deep inside my skull.
As soon as I fell down, the gang attacked my husband cruelly. Their intention was clear. They wanted to kill my husband.”
The final cries of her husband, desperately seeking help still haunts Kausalya. But the passersby just did not come to their rescue. They just stood and watched the brutal murder.
“My parents should be hanged,” she says, repeatedly.
