Banner and posters of Pranay on the walls of the house to demand Jusice (Photo: Nikhat fatima/TwoCircles.net)

Facts of the case:
On 14th of September, Friday, Pranay, 23, his wife Amrutha, 21 and Pranay’s mother Premalatha had gone to a maternity hospital for a check-up as Amrutha is pregnant. As they were walking out of the hospital, an unknown assailant came up from behind and hacked Pranay to death striking two fatal blows on each side of his neck. Pranay died on the spot while Amrutha fell down unconscious.
The unknown assailant was caught on the camera but escaped from the spot.

Balaswamy told this committee, “I knew Maruthi Rao, Amrutha’s father would do some mischief but I never imagined that he would kill my son. I was always apprehensive that he would harm me because I accepted their marriage and even arranged for a reception.But Maruthi Rao killed my son instead. From day one he did not accept my son as his son in law. “

Balaswamy Pranay’s father with CLMC member (Photo: Nikhat Fatima/ TwoCircles.net)

Initially, even Pranay’s family were against this relationship because of the differences in the castes. Pranay was a Dalit Christian from the Mala caste while Amrutha Varshini belonged to the Vaishya (traders) community which is an upper caste.

But the couple were so much in love and nothing could stop them. Balaswamy told us that the children were ‘good friends’ right from their school days when they were studying at Kakathiya Concept School in Miryalaguda. Amrutha was Pranay’s junior by two years. Later, when they were pursuing their higher studies in Hyderabad their love blossomed as there were no restrictions or prying eyes in the city like Miryalaguda town.

But in 2017 the families learnt of their relationship.

Amrutha’s father, Maruthi Rao, a real estate developer and owner of several properties was against his only daughter’s affair and kept her confined in the house for nearly six months.

Since Pranay’s parents too disapproved, the couple eloped and got married at an Arya Samaj temple in Hyderabad in January 2018.

Pranay’s parents relented and helped the couple settle by renting out a villa for them in Hyderabad and furnishing it. They even threw a reception for them when they learnt that Amrutha was expecting.

It was a grand affair and the videos and pictures that Amrutha posted on her Facebook page were like scenes from a fairy tale. The video and pictures were viral with thousands of likes and shares.

Pranay and Amrutha at their wedding reception (Courtsey: Social Media)

And perhaps Maruthi also saw these videos which enraged him further.

We were told that these videos and the thousands of likes infuriated Maruthi Rao that he actually wanted to post a video of Pranay being killed.

The plan for Murder:
Maruthi personally knew Mohammed Bari, who resided in Nalgonda which is around 60 kilometres from Miryalaguda. Bari and Maruthi Rao knew each other from the last few years. And Bari had a criminal past. When Maruti told him of the plan to bump off Pranay, Bari contacted his friends in crime and a deal was struck for Rs.1 crore as per the police.

The others arrested in the case are  Subash Sharma, who was with Bari in a prison and is the person who hacked Pranay; Asghar Ali, who was one of the accused in the murder of Hiren Pandya, former Home Minister of Gujrat, Abdul Kareem, a transport operator and also a friend of Maruthi Rao, Sravan, a relative of Maruti and Shiva, Maruti’s driver. And of course, Maruti Rao himself who is the main accused in the case.

It has come to light that Rs 16 lakh was paid in advance to the hired killers.

Before September 14, the hired contract killer Sharma who is from Bihar was brought to Miryalgudda and familiarised with the town.

Balaswamy, Pranay’s father said, “ It is a planned murder and the killer was such an expert he did his job swiftly and fled from the scene.”

He also said that he has seen the FIR and the sections under which the 7 accused are booked under 302 (Murder), 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 120b (Party to a criminal conspiracy) read with 109 (Abetment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

Amrutha’s stand:
Amrutha, now very frail and tired due to the constant appearances on various channels and pestered by all the newspapers was suffering from a severe cough. She is now in the 6th month of pregnancy and is living with her in-laws. She does not ever want to go back to her father.

One can see the dark circles under her eyes and the sad forlorn look in her eyes as she sleeps in a room adorned with pictures of Pranay and herself. But she speaks with determination when she says she wants her father to be punished as she is sure that he is behind the murder of her husband.

And she has reason to believe so because when her father learnt of her pregnancy he had wanted her to abort the child. And right from the beginning, he was dead against their relationship.

Amrutha (Photo: Nikhat fatim/TwoCircles.net)

Support for Pranay:
On the day of the funeral which was on Sunday and also before that there were hordes of people from different religions and castes visiting the family to show their solidarity. The youth groups were especially charged and vowed to fight alongside the family till justice is delivered.

Dalit groups and activists all came to offer condolences and demand for justice. There was chanting of slogans that said, ‘Pranay amar rahe’ and Long live Dalit unity and even Laal salaam. When the funeral procession was taken from the church there was a sea of people.

Support for Maruthi:
However, there was another group of people who felt the murder was justified.

The people from Vaishya community who took out a rally in Nalgonda District with banners that said, ‘ We support Maruti Rao’.

But, not all of the Vaishya community members support Maruti, said Pranay’s father. He said there were many people from the Vaishya community who came to offer condolences and they condoled the action of other Vaishya who supported Maruti.

But we can see several groups and individuals hailing from upper castes being vocal about their support to Maruti. They have posed questions such as, “Will you accept/ be quiet if your daughter marries a man from low caste?”

“Does it not hurt the parents who bring up their daughters/ sons with so much of love to see them go against their wishes and marry a person of low caste?”

There have been some who felt aghast when Amrutha spoke on the TV accusing her father and saying that she wants him to be punished.

Statue for Pranay:
Pranay has become a martyr for the Dalit community and all others who believe in love. His untimely death for being a Dalit has caused outrage and at the same time made him a hero. The youth groups and also others and even Amrutha, his wife want a statue of Pranay erected in their town.

But as soon as the upper caste people got wind of this plan, they began protesting and even wrote to the government officials not to grant permission for a statue to be built.

Will justice be done?
Although there are visitors every day to meet the parents of Pranay and offer them support, Balaswamy says the accused may get a bail in a month or two and after that, the case may prolong for years together. Will we get justice?

Findings:
1.  Upper caste hegemony reflects clearly in this case. It is a fact that in this era of the 21st Century caste is the base of Hindu society in India. It is also a fact that the mindset of upper caste people has not yet changed. The upper castes still believe in the caste system and being of upper caste is an honour for them.  Dalits are untouchables and maintaining relations with a Dalit community is against their dignity.
2.   The fact that even Pranay’s family were well to do and owned a duplex and in a position to provide all comforts to Amrutha was not enough which again shows that caste was the only criteria for this murder.
3.  Maruti Rao hatched the conspiracy to kill Pranay in a well-planned manner just to maintain his dignity and he is proud about this killing.
4.  In this case, the upper caste Vaishya community have united and are supporting a criminal act by conducting rallies, press conference and through social media. Now it has become a trend in India to support the criminals, especially when the victims are Dalits and Muslims.

Demands:
·   Civil Liberties monitoring committee demands that a special investigation team (SIT) be constituted for investigation and a special Fast-track court be formed for the case trail in Hyderabad city so that free and fair trial can be done.
·   Respect the will and wish of Pranay’s wife for building a statue of Pranay and starting a trust in the name of her husband.
·   Grant ex gratia to the family of Balaswamy and Pranay’s wife Amruthavarshini
·   Provide a govt gob to Amrutha, Pranay’s wife.
·   CLMC also demands of a firm action to be taken against those who are supporting this killing in the name of honour.

banners of pranay and amrutha at the gate of the house in Miryalaguda (Photo: Nikhat fatima/TwoCircles.net)

Courtesy: Two Circles

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Image: The Hindu
 
She is a senior journalist from NDTV. Got many awards and is known for ‘fair’ reporting from Andhra-Telangana states but one tweet actually said so many things which she might have been trying to hide under the pretext of being ‘progressive.’ The problem in this country is that ‘progressive’ have enjoyed the patronage of power for long and how they are compelled to defend things which will expose. ‘I am not justifying angry father’s killing away his daughter but it is also heartbreaking to see a daughter brought up with much love, wishing her father hangs to death, no mercy given. Can there be a worse punishment for dad,’ said Uma Sudhir in her tweet. Her husband T S Sudhir also wrote the same thing in a different way, ‘ Violence over inter-caste marriages is not justified but to look at it only through the prism of caste is not right. Madhavi’s family are goldsmiths, the boy she married work as a parcel boy at a Biryani point. Why won’t father feel aggrieved as his daughter’s choice’?
 
Two tweets are related to the case in Hyderabad where Madhavi, the young girl from a goldsmith family (jaati) and her husband Sandeep Dilda, a Dalit, both students were brutally attacked by her father in broad daylight. Madhavi is in a serious condition struggling for her life in the hospital.
 
The famous journalists are actually justifying the ‘pain’ of the father whose daughter chose a ‘pick up boy’ as a partner, against their izzat. When those who claim to be ‘writers’ and ‘intellectuals’ write such rubbish then it is more disturbing though it never surprises me how the powerful caste intellectuals find ways and means to justify their position. Agreed, parents normally are aggrieved in if their children take a different decision about marriage. No parents will welcome it unless they are unIndian in their thoughts and actions, thoroughly isolated from rest of the society. But does being aggrieved means going to the length of killing their children? So how can Uma and Sudhir condemn Khap Panchayats who are issuing farmans to control their children. I was wondering why was Pranay killed because he had all the traits as per Uma and Sudhir. Pranay, was educated as well as handsome and from a reasonably well to do family. Why was he killed? It is simple. Caste killed Pranay. Education, job, qualification does not matter except your caste.
 
Therefore, the second attack on two lovers in Hyderabad is nothing but a caste attack. Caste has such a dirty mind that it refuses to go away from our heart. Many of our friends wrote about how their lives matter but I say every life matters. This graded inequality is so powerful that it won’t allow even a Mala to marry a Madiga, a Chamar to marry a Balmiki or a Palla to marry a Pariah. The system is made so powerful that Baba Saheb Ambedkar had to call for its total annihilation which means the total abolition of the Brahmanical religion based on this. While I agree with the point that let us not call these marriages as project ‘annihilation of castes’ but it is also a fact that those who are doing so know each other and are consenting couples, which is a welcome sign.
 
I will not call these marriages as ‘inter-caste’ marriages. Marriage is not a ‘TRP’ project. It is your personal choice and I am sure as we grow, more boys and girls will opt for it. The society has been killing people since ages but it has not reduced. Our so-called activists may cry a lot but people will go and you can’t stop them unless you take one community to the moon and other to the ocean. If you are living together, these youths will rebel. Not everyone sails against the wind and those who do it have to face it. It is the failure of the state to protect them. We cannot stop asking questions about the role not played by our states. What are they doing to protect the individual’s life and liberty?
 
Baba Saheb Ambedkar said we are still not a society because we never respect an individual’s liberty and choices. Unless an individual is given right to decide about his or her fate, we can’t call ourselves a society. Thankfully, our Constitution acknowledged the rights of an individual but our societies and families have not allowed us to do so. The conflict between primitive ideas and the modern constitution is now clearly visible. A constitution which gave us all equal treatment but the jaati-minds would not agree to it. For them, your jaati matters more. As Madhav Rao felt or Madhavi’s father felt. These are caste killings plain and simple.
 
However, it is not that all such marriages are abused. The success of a marriage is not because of your being from the same community or different, otherwise, why would marriages fail in India despite the priests looking at your ‘kundalis’ and marriages being performed on ‘auspicious’ dates. Most of the Indian society, those who are either Hindus or semi Hindus or varnavadis, actually marry according to the advice of their priests and yet most marriages fail. You deem a marriage successful just because you see them riding the scooter together or participating in a marriage together but beyond that, there is a suffocation. It is also a fact that the so-called love marriages too are not based on any ideological grounds. They are the stories of ‘mills and boons’ so please do not bring any big ideological slant in them. They are simple middle-class fiction. Romantic partner, good looking (looks are too important in India) and obsession with fair skins. Once you marry whether inside the castes or outside it, love or without, you become husband and wife with a clearly defined division of labour. I have seen many who married on their own and after marriage have become typical husband and wife. Now, once you are just doing your duties, not much is expected from you.
 
The attempt to get legitimacy from parents and society is the most dangerous things and a honey trap. When the young fall in love particularly those from different castes, the biggest challenge for them is how to get their act legitimized. The constitution provides them but they return to Manusmriti. I am sure, no Manuwadi will ever agree to their children marrying outside their varna. They are getting exposed with their acts of desperation.
 
It is also important for us to speak up and guide our children that marriage is not ‘everything’ and that consenting sexual relationship may not necessarily end up in marriage. Sex and marriage in India are considered synonymous and that result in the biggest crisis of our time. When two young boys and girls enter into a relationship, it has two different narratives. Before entering into any relationship, it is important whether they want it to lead to marriage or not. The problems start from there. Secondly, unless the boys and girls are independent enough, not to look for ‘guidance’ from their ‘families’, only then they opt for it otherwise better not do it. We are witnessing this where children are committing suicide due to failure and rejection in love. It is time for a proactive approach to these issues.
 
Our society does not really allow you to be independent. This is my own personal experience of nearly 30 years. You live on edge and people will only come to you if you are ‘successful’. The false caste pride exists everywhere. It is doomed to fail but it will ruin the lives of our youths. While the media may make noise about it, people speak according to their caste locations and at the end, those who talk a bit of sense and reasoning are outdated and isolated. The age of technology is that you don’t work with the communities, their youth and children as that is a difficult task, it takes your time and does not give you much needed ‘publicity’. You only wake up when something happens and then these incidents provide an opportunity to everyone according to their convenience.
 
Last year we saw grand celebrations in London on Prince Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle, a biracial American commoner. I watched the entire journey on BBC and it gave me a lot of insight why they remain far superior to us even today and I say it with conviction that Shashi Tharoor remains the biggest hypocrite in this case when talking about India. These anglicised brahmins who gained everything from the British want to portray themselves as a ‘superior’ race. Shashi Tharoor, your civilization is in the gutter. Please visit a Balmiki Basti or a sewage being cleaned. Your civilization is in the home of Pranay. Please meet his family and find out what is great about it. Your civilization is when the children in school refuse to eat mid-day meal cooked by the Dalit women. What rubbish these netas and ‘philosophers’ talk about. At least, at the Oxford, people listened to him and those like him clapped for him, but back home if we speak anything adverse, we face the music.
 
As I have said several times, India’s cultural crisis is severe. It will become further chaotic unless people think about it and find solutions together. Calling each other names is not going to solve anything. Asking children not to marry and look for love inside your castes, will not succeed and is no guarantee of a great marriage. What’s important is to strengthen individuals and their rights where the state must protect their choices.
 
Of course, marriage is not the end and can be broken if does not work. Once, the sanctity of marriage and sex is broken, India could become a much more humane society. Marriage within communities was purely a Brahmanical attempt to ensure purity of their castes. It is not going to help.
 
Those who plan ‘special’ children to maintain the purity and superiority of their race will not succeed at all. 21st century’s Ambedakrite youths are not going to accept the Brahmanical casteist dominance and will follow the path shown by him. Indian cannot call themselves a civilized nation as long as they have Dalits being killed in the gutter and in the name of castes.
 
The Indian state has failed. Political parties have failed. Our constitution has everything which protects the rights of the people to live according to their choice but those in charge of implementation have no respect for it. In their heart, they have Manusmriti and that is why the police fails to produce witnesses or make a foolproof case. Moreover, caste prejudices are so high in our administration and system that at the end of the day they make our constitution merely a book which has to be adored and worshipped but not implemented. Those who join our administration, police and any other government jobs, must be made to respect and follow the law of the land but also shed their own prejudices so that it is fairly implemented in the greater interest of democracy and justice.
 
The author is Vidya Bhushan Rawat, a social and human rights activist. He blogs at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com

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