Hyderabad: Ms T. Amrutha Varshini, the five-month pregnant wife of a honour killing victim, said someone was keeping a watch on them, and informing her father Maruthi Rao.
Ms Varshini’s father Maruthi Rao and his family were against Ms Varshini’s marriage with P. Pranay Kumar, a Dalit man.
Ms Varshini told this newspaper, “Though Pranay looked like a mature person, he was like a child at heart. He couldn’t bear a small injury. I can’t imagine how he bore the pain of the stab injury. It would have been better if my father had killed me instead of Pranay.”
She said she was well-looked after by Pranay’s family after their marriage.
According to sources, Ms Varshini received a call from her father before the attack. When she called her father after the attack, he asked her to visit the hospital. He then disconnected the call stating signal problems.
Ms Varshini told the media: “My husband’s murder was pre-planned. My father is the main culprit. He hired members of the Nayeem gang to kill my husband. My mother used to inform how he used to keep tabs on my movements.”
“My mother used to call and tell me where I was. She said someone used to call my father and inform him about my whereabouts. When I told them about my pregnancy my father pressured me to go for abortion,” she said.
Pranay was a Dalit Christian from the Scheduled Caste (Mala) while Amrutha belongs to the Vaishya caste. They knew each other since 2011. Pranay was in Class 10 when he first met Amrutha at Kakatiya Concept School in Miryalaguda.
Pranay completed his engineering at Srinidhi Institute of Science and Technology, Amrutha did her undergraduate course from International Institute of Fashion Design, Hyderabad. Her family came to know about their relationship in 2017 and were opposed to it. The couple got married at the Arya Samaj in Hyderabad in January.
She said she was beaten up by her father Maruthi Rao and her uncle in front of 80 family members. “No one questioned them after they came to know about my marriage. I was under house arrest for six months,” Ms Varshini said.
