On caste killings, wheels of justice turn so slow

The last time A Boominathan saw his wife was at Sivaganga taluk police station in the last week of December 2014, barely 10 days after they had got married. Threatened, beaten up and forced to leave his native Sivaganga, Boominathan was in Chennai in March 2015 when while reading the newspaper he chanced upon a report of a woman murdered in rural Sivaganga for marrying outside her caste. “It was my wife Tamilselvi,’’ says Boominathan.
Boominathan, a dalit from Udaikulam village in Sivaganga, worked as a car driver when he fell in love with Tamilselvi, a konar, from the same village. The couple got married and were living in Srivaikuntam when they were hunted down with the help of police. Tamilselvi’s family took her away forcibly.

Six people including Tamilselvi’s father were booked in the case. But seven years on, Boominathan awaits justice. “Forget justice, not even a trial has begun,” says Boominathan.
The trial in the murder of dalit youth Gokulraj has ended and the culprits have been punished. But there are several other caste killings in the state, like that of Tamilselvi, which are in the courts for years.

“I don’t even know the status of the case,’’ says C Krishnaperumal, uncle of M Gopalakrishnan, who was murdered, for falling in love with his college mate, a vanniyar, from the neighhbouring Bargursavadi village. Similar to the Gokulraj case, Gopalakrishnan was last seen with the girl in December 2012. When his father Mayakrishnan approached police, a missing case was filed.
“There was no effort to probe the whereabouts of Gopalakrishnan. We filed a habeus corpus petition in the Madras high court. That’s when police said a body was found in a lake and it was that of Gopalakrishnan,” said Krishnaperumal. The last hearing of the case at the district court was
three years ago.
Mayakrishnan had to mortgage his house to get his elder daughter married and is now toiling to get two of his daughters married. “We neither have the money nor support for the legal battles,” said Krishnaperumal.
In Cuddalore, Sathish Kumar is happy that at least the hearing is over in the case of the murder of his wife Bhavani.
“The hearing was over long ago. But there is no sign of a judgment,’’ he said. Sathish Kumar, a dalit, was working in a garment unit in Tirupur when he fell in love with Bhavani, 25, belonging to the thevar community from |, Ramanathapuram in 2012. As Bhavani’s family objected, they got married and began living in Tirupur.
“I got a job in Malaysia and had to leave. We had two children by that time. Bhavani’s grandparents asked her to live with them in Ramanathapuram, though her parents distanced themselves,” he said. Sathish was in Malaysia when he was told that his wife was murdered.
Initially, police suspected that it was Bhavani’s brother who took her to their home and killed her. “But my son, then six years old, told police that Bhavani’s parents were also there. They held her when her brother attacked her with a knife,” he said.
A Kathir, executive director of Evidence, an NGO, who has helped many victims fight the cases legally, said that in the past 20 years judgments for only six such cases have been delivered, which includes the Kannagi-Murugesan case, the Udumalpet Sankar case and the Gokulraj murder case.
“This was because there were eyewitnesses who came forward for Gokulraj and Sankar cases. In most of these incidents, the accused are family members of the victim. So in those cases there is no one to pursue the case legally,” he said, adding that there are several instances of witnesses turning hostile too.
Advocate P Rathinam, who pursued the infamous Kannagi-Murugesan case and got the judgment delivered after 18 years of legal struggle, said the problem starts from the investigation stage. A biased police force, indifferent bureaucracy, lack of political will to go after the perpetrators of caste killings out of fear of antagonising dominant castes and poor financial background of victims lead to a delay in cases.
“Field reality is very bad. Even dalit parties do not offer proper support till the end in these cases,” Rathinam said.
While there is a growing call for a separate legislation for caste killing cases, Gowthama Sanna, deputy general secretary of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, said a statutory body should be set up to monitor and probe these cases. “Ingrained caste bias at all levels, particularly in the police department prolongs investigations. So an independent body should be created to ensure time bound completion of the probe,” he said.