Honour killing is not the only threat that is induced by Caste Hindus on their daughters and their Dalit husbands.
While the number of such incidents is more in the southern districts, it is quite rare in the Western Region. But, there are a number of incidents in the recent years where inter-caste love and marriage involving a Dalit boy and Caste Hindu girl have triggered unrest.
One of the recent incidents in this region that one would not forget was the ordeal over the marriage of Dalit youth Elavarasan with Divya in which the houses of Dalits in Elavarasan’s village in Dharmapuri were torched. The youth was found dead near a railway track under suspicious circumstances on July 4, 2013. Then there was the murder of Dalit youth Gokulraj in Namakkal on June 24, 2015.
President of Social Justice Party N. Paneerselvam told The Hindu that some honour killings had been buried as suicides or death due to suspicion where the accused go scot-free due to lack of evidence.
“In Coimbatore, Chitrarasu, a weaver of Somanur, was run over by a lorry in July 2009, shortly after he married a Caste Hindu girl. But all the accused were acquitted due to lack of evidence,” he said.
He also cited the example of a boy from Arunthathiyar community in Coimbatore who married a Caste Hindu girl from Madurai about eight years ago.
“The family has not gone to her village so far, due to fear for life following the threats from her family,” he said.
He claimed that many inter-caste couples involving Dalits had been separated by the police owing to pressure and influence from various quarters.
“If the couple were strong in staying together, the Caste Hindu parents harassed them by not allowing them to continue education (if they were students) or ensured that they lost their job by influencing their employers. In many incidents, the future of those young couples was at stake as their certificates were destroyed,” he added.
