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Two days after the gruesome murder of a 27-year-old Dalit man in a suspected caste killing in Tirunelveli, his family are refusing to receive his mortal remains, demanding justice. The main demand of the family of Kavin Selvaganesh is the arrest of the parents of Subhashini, the woman who he was in a relationship with.
Her father Saravanan and mother Krishnakumari are sub inspectors working in the Tamil Nadu Special Police (TSP).
On July 27, Kavin and family were at a hospital in KTC Nagar, Tirunelveli. They had reportedly gone to consult for Tamilselvi’s father. According to Kavin's mother Tamilselvi, Subhashini’s brother S Surjith (23) came to the hospital at around 2.30 pm and told Kavin that his parents wanted to see him. Surjith then took Kavin away on his bike.
After a while, when Kavin’s mother Tamilselvi and others left the hospital, they saw Kavin and Surjith standing on the street and approached them. Surjith then allegedly started hurling casteist abuses at them, accusing them of trying to marry Kavin to his sister.
“While he was shouting at us, he suddenly took out a machete from behind him and tried to attack Kavin. When Kavin attempted to stop Surjith, he injured my son’s arm. Kavin then started running, and Surjith chased him and hacked him to death. He told me to take the body and leave. ‘My parents will be peaceful only after this,’ he said,” Tamilselvi said in her complaint.
She added that Kavin had informed his brother earlier about threats from Subhashini’s family, but had not pursued the matter legally.
Meanwhile, news reports claimed that Surjith threw chilli powder on Kavin’s face before attacking him. Speaking to TNM, Tamilselvi’s brother Ravi dismissed the allegations and said that they were exaggerations.
According to Kavin’s relatives, he was in a long term relationship with Subhashini, a Siddha doctor. Their inter-caste relationship was severely disapproved of by her family.
Kavin belonged to the Devendra Kula Vellalar community, which comes under the Scheduled Castes in Tamil Nadu, while Subhashini's family is from the Maravar sub-caste of the Thevar community, falling under falling under Denotified Communities (DNC) in Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi.
On July 29, Saravanan and Krishnakumari were suspended from service. However, Kavin’s parents are demanding that they be arrested.