Mother, daughter held for honor killing

Chennai: In a case of honor killing, a sexagenarian and her daughter were arrested after being charged with murder of her granddaughter, four years ago in a village in Tamil Nadu.
The ‘upper caste’ Hindu woman was enraged over her granddaughter Thiruchelvi eloping with a dalit Christian in June 2008 in Paramakudi village in Ramanathapuram district.

According to police, Thiruchelvi, a grade XII student, of Kalaiyoor village was in love with Daniel Raj which her family did not approve.

They kept the 17-year-old girl locked up but she escaped and urged Raj to marry her. He persuaded her to return to her parents as she was underage for marriage.

But when she refused he got her a job at a textile mill at Tirupur.

However, Thiruchelvi’s family got in touch with Raj and tricked them to return.

On their way back her family intercepted them and beat up the two.

Thiruchelvi was then poisoned, strangled and smothered with a pillow by her mother and grandmother.

“They buried the body the same night telling the people that the last rites should not be delayed because she died of small pox”, said A. Kathir, executive director of Evidence, an NGO which conducted a ‘field-probe’.

Paramakudi DSP R. Ganesh said the investigation took time as the team of three government doctors could not deliver a definite verdict in proper time.

One doctor had gone on leave and another opted for premature retirement. It was necessary to get them all to record opinion because a question was raised in the postmortem report about the girl’s hyoid (neck) bone being broken.

“We have finally got the doctors’ findings completed and confronted the two women with the evidence,” the DSP said.

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