Now, honour killing rocks TN: Father attacks daughter
Shalini Umachandran & Padmini Sivarajah, TNN, Jul 7, 2010, 01.41am IST
Shocking case of honour killing in ChennaiCHENNAI/MADURAI: If you
thought honour killings are confined to northern states, here's a
reality check: a Tamil Nadu girl, who eloped with her boyfriend after
she was married off to a man 15 years older to her, paid a heavy price
for it. She lost her lover and was brutally attacked and ostracized by
her family and community.
Megala decided to follow her heart. And paid a heavy price for it,
losing her lover and being attacked and ostracised by her family and
community in Manamadurai.
The latest in a series of such attacks on women in the state, the
Megala case dispels the popular notion that 'honour killings' are
confined to Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the north; southern
states such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh too witness similar
incidents periodically. Many of them are sparked off when educated
single women walk out of their homes and choose their own partners,
sometimes from another community or caste.
Honour crimes and killings take place when young people challenge
accepted norms of marriage, according to a study commissioned by the
National Commission for Women (NCW). Megala, 20, and Sivakumar, 24,
were told they couldn't marry as they were related. Her family married
her off in June. Ten days after the wedding, she ran away with
Sivakumar. Her family tracked the couple down and attacked Sivakumar
with 'aruvaals'. Sivakumar died on the spot, and his killers, who
included her father and brother, have been arrested. Megala, now in
hospital, says that everyone in her village, including her mother,
feels that the punishment is justified as she brought shame to her
village and the Thevar community to which she belongs.
The accusation against her are virtually the same as those made
against victims in north India. The NCW study, still underway, shows
that of the 326 cases of conflict surveyed so far nationwide, 72% were
because the couple crossed caste barriers and only 3% were because the
couple were from the same gotra. "Women are making their own choices
and in a patriarchal set-up this causes problems," says Ravi Kant,
Supreme Court advocate and president of Shakti Vahini, the
organisation that is conducting the study for NCW.
Activists in Tamil Nadu endorse this view. "Honour killings are not
unheard of in TN. The basis is usually caste, more often than not a
Dalit boy marrying an upper caste girl," says U Vasuki, general
secretary, All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA).
But there is no data available to indicate the extent of the problem,
primarily because cases are registered as murder under the IPC without
charges to indicate that it may be an honour killing. If the case
involves a Dalit and a non-Dalit, it is registered under the SC/ST
Prevention of Atrocities Act.
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