On March 13, three assailants with sickles waylaid Sankar and Kausalya on a busy road in Udumalaipettai in Tamil Nadu and attacked them, killing Sankar and leaving Kausalya seriously injured. Their crime: Sankar, a Dalit, married Kausalya who hailed from the powerful Thevar community. The CCTV footage was beamed on most TV channels, sending shockwaves across the state.
Back at his home in Tiruchy, as he repeatedly watched images of the couple being attacked, a chill went down 28-year-old Kannadasan’s spine. Will his fate be the same, he wondered. He too was a Dalit, and was in love with a girl from the powerful Kongu Vellalar community. Last year, Dalit youngster Gokulraj was allegedly murdered for being friendly with a girl from that community.
Kannadasan’s fear however transformed to caution, and he decided to keep the promise he made to 21-year-old Chitra. On March 23, as planned, they registered their marriage in Namakkal, and contacted ‘Karate’ Muthukumar, a lawyer known for protecting harrowed couples. Soon after the wedding, the couple went into hiding.
Kannadasan and his wife Chitra met seven years ago. He hails from Uzhangudi and she is from Manachanallur, both small towns near Tiruchy. He started his training as a painting contractor in Manachanallur and used to meet Chitra everyday on the bus. The bus meetings turned to phone calls and then he proposed her. “I went on a bike and proposed her, she took two months to think,” he said, “but she finally said yes.”
Soon, Chitra’s parents came to know of her love-affair with Kannadasan, and they inquired about it with her. Out of fear, she flatly refused that she was in a relationship.
But with questions being raised, Kannadasan and Chitra decided to elope. He had planned to run away with her after college. It well-planned and executed, except that the girl’s family came to know about the marriage on the same day.
They immediately contacted the advocate and went into hiding. “Both me and my wife are very scared. The girl’s father and her relatives keep coming to our house and are threatening my mother and brother saying that they will kill me, they also said if I do not return they will get my brother arrested,” said Kannadasan.
The girl’s father has also reportedly threatened the girl to come back home or else they will kill Kannadasan. “The girl’s mother wants to bring the girl back home and then send her away to their native place,” said Kannadasan.
Kannadasan does not have a father and he is the one who takes care of his mother, Mahadevi and brother Rajkumar, who also works as a painting contractor. Chitra is studying M. Com at Indra Gandhi College in Manachanallur.
The newly-wedded couple only wants to return to Kannadasan’s house and start their lives without the fear of being attacked by girl's family members like Sankar and Kausalya.
The advocate had filed a police complaint. “I went and registered a complaint at the superintendent’s office as we feel that the local police are supporting the girl’s father,” said Muthukumar.
But the couple still lives in fear. “We want the girl’s father to give a written statement that they are not going to do anything to us, they are not going to torture or threaten us, then only we are going to return to my home,” said Kannadasan, wondering who can save them from becoming a statistic in the spate of caste-killing in Tamil Nadu.