Stories from the underworld of Tuticorin, when it was infamously known as Tamil Nadu’s crime capital

Murappanadu village is on the banks of the Thamarabarani river. The police station there sits amid the paddy fields. The village lies behind the police station and the fields stretch out in front of it. Big trees, mostly neem, loom over the station. It is the last police station on National Highway 7A in Tuticorin district. Beyond that lies Tirunelveli district.

Superintendent Jaiswal was on his way to inspect a parade in Tirunelveli when on the wireless came a message about a murder in the Murappanadu police station limits.

They had crossed the police station only a while back. While returning to Tuticorin, the wireless said the local area deputy superintendent of police was on his way to the police station. A murder investigation, categorized as a grave crime, had to be supervised by the deputy superintendent of police.

Since the Murappanadu police station was on the way, Jaiswal had his car stopped there, and the moment the sentry saw the car, he stood at attention. Four or five people were sitting on the verandah as Jaiswal strode into the police station. Among them was a girl who was crying inconsolably. The inspector was there, and he stood up as soon as he saw the SP.

‘What information do you have regarding the murder?’ the superintendent asked without preliminaries. The inspector pointed to a woman in her forties, sitting quietly on the floor. ‘She quarrelled with her husband and has murdered him,’ he said. She was wearing a saree that was old and worn out. There was, Jaiswal noticed, a tear in her blouse as well. The body was at the spot where the man had been killed in their house.

The inquest was over, and they were waiting for a hired van to send the body for post-mortem to the government hospital. The murder weapon had been seized – a small short-handled axe that women used to chop firewood. The inspector requested the superintendent to sit down while he sent for a cup of tea. They were registering the FIR. Usually, police bring all the information they can into the report. It is the only document signed by the complainant. They usually got witnesses to narrate the crime coherently and obtained their signatures. Getting independent witnesses was difficult because people were hesitant to go to the court when the case came up for hearing a year or two later.

The man who had been killed was short-tempered and a drunkard. Both the husband and wife worked as labourers in the fields.

Outside their one-room hut they had a very small patch of land, about a fourth of an acre, in which she grew some vegetables. They had a daughter who had come of age. She was twelve or thirteen years old. The couple fought often. If the woman didn’t give him the money he asked for, he abused her and beat her in front of their daughter. If she gave him the money, he would drink and come home, and then want to have sex with his wife, and it did not bother him that the daughter was in the room. This was the pattern. If she didn’t comply, he would beat her, punch her, kick her. He was violent when he was drunk, and violent when he wasn’t. He would beat his daughter when she tried to defend her mother.

About six months ago, when his wife refused to let him have sex with her saying the daughter was in the room, and she was a big girl now and it was not proper, he said, ‘Okay. If you refuse, she is there,’ and he lurched towards the daughter. It was not clear what his intention was. He cursed the girl, picked up his sickle and swung the weapon.

The girl screamed and moved away, but not before the sickle cut her on the left leg, below her knee, leaving a bleeding gash that ran deep into her calf. Screaming, the mother and daughter ran, and were able to get the wound attended to locally. It had taken six months to heal. Though the wound had healed, the girl now walked with a limp.

The night before he was killed, the man had come back drunk and lustily tried to grab his wife. She had resisted, and he had landed a couple of blows on her. She pushed him away, and he fell on the floor.

He sat up and told her that if she did not do as he wanted, he would go for his daughter, and this time he would finish the job, not leave it partly done like the last time.

The daughter screamed and ran to the mother and stood behind her. The man managed to get up and picked the sickle and staggered towards the daughter, shouting at her. His wife did not think twice. She picked up the short-handled axe and brought it down on her husband. Twice. The first blow landed near the right eye, and the blade took off the man’s ear, and even as he began screaming, she brought the axe down again, this time harder.

The axe entered the neck at an angle and went in deeper as the man flailed his arms and managed to grab her blouse before falling heavily. The frayed blue blouse, many years old, the fabric weakened by many hard washes, gave way, and a part of it came away in his hand as he bled in spurts. The girl screamed, and both ran out of the house.

When the screams drew the people from the nearby houses, they found the floor was covered in blood, the man’s neck halfway cut open, the collarbone glistening white, his legs twisted below him, the sickle in his open palm, the blade of the axe buried deep in his neck. His eyes were wide open, staring at the starless night through the open door.

The wife told the neighbours she had killed her husband.

It was around half past eight at night when they reached the Murappanadu police station. Only a police constable was there. He went on the wireless and informed the sub-inspector, who came later in the night. The inspector was informed, and the FIR was written, that there was a family quarrel and she killed him in the course of the quarrel and she had confessed to it and to the neighbours who were recorded as witnesses. Under the law, a confession by a criminal to the police was not admissible in court. So, the police, in the FIR, normally try to bring in witnesses so the confession would hold up in court at the time of the trial.

The wife became an accused under Section 302, which was murder. The superintendent spoke briefly with the woman. She said she knew she would be hanged for killing her husband, but she didn’t care.

‘I don’t care if my husband had attacked me with the aruval,’ she told the superintendent, adding, ‘I don’t mind death. But my daughter? What has she done to deserve this fate?’ Tears flowed down her face. Who would look after her daughter when she went to prison? What would become of her? The woman was only worried about her daughter.

The superintendent told the inspector that perhaps they were looking at the incident the wrong way. Life was much larger than the law. It was not murder that she was guilty of. The only eyewitness was the daughter. What had she said? The inspector said they had not taken her statement. He asked where the daughter was. She was in the verandah and when summoned, she ran in weeping and went and hugged her mother. The girl probably thought the police would take her away, too.

The inspector calmed her, gave her some tea, and spoke to her gently and she was able to narrate the incident. She showed the scar on her leg. The scar was an angry red line on her calf. She said she was afraid her father would have killed her, and she had run to her mother for protection. The superintendent asked the inspector to record the girl’s statement.

After he had recorded it, he asked, ‘Where is the murder now? It is pure and simple self-defence. Under law, if someone was attempting to kill another person while you are a witness, you can intervene and cause the death of the assailant to protect the other person from being murdered and that would amount to self-defence, too.’

Just a few months ago, her husband had caused an injury to his daughter with the sole intent of causing her grievous harm. He had been constantly threatening to kill their daughter, and from the pattern of his violence and cruelty to his wife and daughter, there was no doubt in his wife’s mind that her husband was going to kill the daughter and afterwards, possibly her too. By her action, she had defended the life of her daughter. She did everything necessary to protect her daughter. She warned him and he hadn’t listened. He had picked up the sickle with the intent to kill their daughter, and there was no reason for the wife to believe he wouldn’t because he had already attempted it once.

It was more than a threat. It was imminent and immediate danger to the life of her daughter. Her daughter was still limping because of the previous attack. The woman’s action was preventive, not punitive, not premeditated. Her bona fide as her daughter’s defender was not in question. There was no one else there to protect her daughter, to come to her aid. She was not a criminal. A broader view was called for, covered under self-defence.

Excerpted with permission from Tuticorin: Adventures in Tamil Nadu’s Crime Capital, V Sudarshan, Juggernaut.