HONOUR KILLING A KEY POLL PLANK

Dalit-Bahujan students and social activists want a law to provide protection for persons who opt for inter-caste or interreligion marriages and stern punishment if anyone attacks them.

These students are meeting leaders of major parties including the Congress, TRS, CPI and MIM and requesting them to include the ‘Special Protection Act’ in their manifestoes. The students had met MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi for the purpose on September 29.

The immediate trigger was the killing of T. Pranay Kumar in Miryalaguda in Nalgonda by the father of the girl he had married. Pranay belonged to a Dalit community, and his caste was a major issue with the girl’s family. Following this was the attack by a man on his daughter for marrying outside her caste.

The students have invited the leaders of political parties to a public meeting to be held against caste killings in the Osmania University campus on October 5.

During his interaction on Facebook, TJS president Prof, Kodandaram said the party would try to bring legislation to control such crime.

Mr Sharat Chamar, a MIM candidate, said the killings related intercaste marriages were caste killings and added that calling them as honour killing did not make sense. ‘The real motive behind these killings is caste’, he said.

He said they had invited balladeer Gaddar and Vimalakka and were planning to invite some cinema actors who had come out against the recent killings.

The immediate trigger was the killing of T. Pranay Kumar, a Dalit, in Nalgonda by the father of the girl he had married.