The Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, one of the fronts of CPI(M), will launch a yatra — starting from Salem on June 9 and reaching Chennai on June 23 — as part of its efforts to push for a separate law against honour killing. P. Sampath, TNUEF president and party’s state secretariat member, on Wednesday said that most culprits in honour killing cases in the State went scot-free and the current laws were ineffective when it came to tackling the menace.
“Both Dalit men and caste Hindu women have been killed for inter-caste love affairs or marriages. Only a law to prohibit murders of such couples can provide a solution to this problem,” Mr. Sampath told reporters here. He said that the SC/ST Atrocities Act was not helpful in dealing with murders of inter-caste couples, as caste Hindus too were among the victims in these cases, though Dalit men were dying too.
Few convictions
In the last five years, Tamil Nadu had recorded 185 honour killings, in which 80% of the victims were women, according to A. Kathir, executive director of the Madurai-based NGO Kathir. Speaking to The Hindu over phone, he said that aspects of gender, caste and class intersect in this matter and southern districts such as Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram, Madurai, Theni and Dindigul witnessed most such cases. Though the State had witnessed several such deaths — Vimala Devi from Usilampatti, Shankar from Udumalpet, Gokulraj from Tiruchengode and Ilavarasan from Dharmapuri, among others — there had hardly been any convictions in these cases, Mr. Kathir said.
“First of all we must change the phrase honour killing to honour crime,” he said. “As per crime statistics, about 700-800 women are murdered in the State, of which 15% are triggered by love affairs. And of the 7,000 women committing suicide in the State, about 17% are triggered by love affairs,” he said.
HC directions ignored
Mr. Sampath said that in April last year, Madras High Court judge V. Ramasubramanian had passed orders on the matter to create a 24x7 helpline for couples threatened with murder due to caste conflict. But the nine recommendations in his order, including setting up a special police cell to receive such cases, were yet to be implemented. Further, in 2014, the SC sought a status report on honour killings from States where the practice was prevalent, but Tamil Nadu did not submit it.
“The caste panchayats run their own law in the villages and override what the courts say,” he said.
