The alleged honour killing occurred on the night of 24 August, but the police got a whiff of the incident only on 27 August.
Representational image of an accused behind bars.
The Kolar rural police were in for a rude shock on Sunday, 27 August, when one of their beat policemen overheard a few villagers gossiping about the unnatural death of a 19-year-old girl.
What deepened the suspicion of the beat policeman in the Kolar district of Karnataka was that the teen’s body was buried by her father Venkatesh Gowda, a 50-year-old farmer in Thotli village, in a hush-hush manner in his field early morning on Friday.
Gowda did not even inform his neighbours or other villagers about his daughter’s untimely death, the grapevine seemed to indicate.
The villagers’ gossip seemed to stem from Gowda’s version of the story that his daughter had been unwell and passed away all of a sudden on the night of Thursday.
The beat policeman passed on this gossip to his seniors to get a go-ahead for further probing.
The matter soon reached the ears of Superintendent of Police (SP) M Narayana, who directed a police team from the Kolar Rural Police Station to confirm the incident and verify the facts.
The cops reached Gowda’s house on Sunday and not only confirmed the incident but also learnt that Gowda’s younger brother Chowde Gowda and elder brother Mohan had helped him bury his daughter without informing the authorities.
The police team then informed the revenue officials of the Thotli village. The body of Ramya was exhumed from the field in the presence of the tehsildhar on Sunday evening.
The body was examined by the police, who recorded the injury marks and then shifted it for a post-mortem examination.
Upon further questioning, Venkatesh Gowda told the cops that he assaulted his daughter on Thursday night after he was enraged with her attitude.
According to the police, Ramya used to often chat with a boy on her mobile phone, to which Gowda objected.
The police said Venkatesh Gowda was from the Vokkaliga community, and his family had recently learnt that Ramya had developed a liking for a 17-year-old boy from the Nayak community, which is categorised under the Scheduled Castes (SCs).
Gowda initially drove an auto-rickshaw. However, he met with an accident and injured his right leg, after which he became a farmer, the cops added.
Soon after learning that Ramya was in a relationship with the minor boy, Gowda started inquiring about him, finding out that he worked as a mechanic in the neighbouring village.
Gowda then told his daughter to sever her ties with him. He also warned her not to use her mobile phone as she was often found chatting with the boy after she came home from work.
According to the police, Ramya, after finishing her 10th standard, started working for a private company where she came in contact with the boy from the neighbouring village.
From then on, Ramya and her father had frequent disagreements and quarrels in the house, said the police, adding that Ramya used to despise her father questioning her about her relationship.
Both the father and daughter quarrelled on Thursday night, after which he stamped on her neck and killed her on the spot, said the police.
He then informed his two brothers — Mohan and Chowde Gowda — who arrived at their house and helped him bury Ramya’s body at their field the next morning, added the cops.
The trio apparently told their neighbours and villagers that Ramya was unwell and had collapsed and died on Friday morning.
The news of Ramya’s untimely death spread throughout the Thotli village, which the beat policeman overheard on Sunday.
“After learning about the incident, we exhumed Ramya’s body in the presence of government officials and a judicial inquest was done. We then registered a case of murder and arrested Venkatesh Gowda and his two brothers Mohan and Chowde Gowda,” a senior police officer told South First.
“The three have been also booked for the destruction of evidence. We have recorded the injury marks on the girl’s body. We are awaiting the post-mortem report,” added the officer.
This is not the first time such honour killings have been reported in Karnataka.
In another case of suspected honour killing, a 17-year-old girl named Netravathi was allegedly murdered and her body was cremated in an open field in Karnataka’s Tumakuru district in June this year.
The girl’s father, brother and uncle, who allegedly killed her, tried to convince their neighbours at the Chikkehedigehalli village in the Gubbi taluk that she had died by suicide.
However, the neighbours were not convinced, and their suspicion led to the arrest of the girl’s father Parashurama (50), brother Shivaraju (24), and uncle Tukaram (45).
According to the police, the girl — belonging to a Scheduled Tribe (ST) family — had eloped with an SC youth during the last week of May.
Beat constables who learnt from the villagers about the girl’s death initially took up a case of abetment to suicide against the family members. However, they later learnt that the girl was force-fed pesticide before being strangled with a rope used to tether goats.
Upon confirming Nethravathi’s death, they hanged her before spreading the news of her “suicide” in the village, said the police.
They cremated Nethravati the same day, said the cops, adding that Netravathi’s father wanted her to snap her ties with her lover.
In a similar incident in the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF), a 42-year-old man allegedly killed his 20-year-old daughter as she was in love with a Dalit man.
Fearing Keerthi’s affair with a youth named Gangadhar, who belonged to an SC community, would bring dishonour to the family, her father Krishnamurthy, allegedly smothered her to death at their residence at the Bodaygurki village in Karnataka’s Kolar district on 27 June.
Hours after learning about her death, Gangadhar, a tamate (a handheld percussion instrument) artiste, threw himself in front of a speeding train even as his brother looked on.
The lovers couldn’t unite in life, but their last rites were conducted one after the other at the same crematorium, police sources said.
Keerthi belonged to the Golla community included in the Other Backward Classes and Gangadhar belonged to the Bhovi community, police sources added. The Kamasamudra police registered a case of murder against Krishnamurthy.
In light of the Kolar case from earlier this month, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday appealed for a stop to casteist thinking and honour killings in the name of caste.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he said: “It is essential to bring about transformation and awareness in a casteist society that has created a mindset to commit honour killings.”
Siddaramaiah added: “Even though man has set foot on the moon, we have rituals and traditions that do not allow Dalits to set foot in temples and houses. Humanity, rationalism is the way to overcome the constraints of caste structure; awareness is the weapon.”
He also said: “The need of the day is to widely publicise the aspirations of all social reformers who have tried to liberate the society from the shackles of caste. In this direction, the government will initiate constructive programmes.”
ಮರ್ಯಾದೆಗೇಡು ಹತ್ಯೆಗಳನ್ನು ಮಾಡುವಂತಹ ಮನಸ್ಥಿತಿಯನ್ನು ಸೃಷ್ಟಿಸಿರುವ ಜಾತಿಗ್ರಸ್ತ ಸಮಾಜದಲ್ಲಿ ಪರಿವರ್ತನೆ, ಜಾಗೃತಿಯನ್ನು ಮೂಡಿಸುವುದು ಅತ್ಯವಶ್ಯಕವಾಗಿದೆ. ಮನುಷ್ಯ ಚಂದ್ರನ ಮೇಲೆ ಕಾಲಿರಿಸಿದ್ದರೂ ದಲಿತರಿಗೆ ದೇವಸ್ಥಾನಗಳಲ್ಲಿ, ಮನೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾಲಿರಿಸಲು ಅವಕಾಶವನ್ನು ನೀಡದಂತಹ ಆಚರಣೆ, ಸಂಪ್ರದಾಯಗಳು ನಮ್ಮಲ್ಲಿವೆ.
“ಜಾತಿ ಸಂರಚನೆಯ… pic.twitter.com/PTK52sAEad— CM of Karnataka (@CMofKarnataka) August 29, 2023
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