The wife of a 23-year-old Dalit man, who was hacked to death in Telangana’s Nalgonda district on Friday, has blamed her father for her husband’s murder, reported Times Now. “I am a single child and ever since I married [Perumalla] Pranay in January this year, my father rarely spoke to me,” said Amrutha Varshini, who is pregnant. “When he did, he would only call and ask me to return home or terminate the pregnancy.”
On Wednesday, two days before the murder, Varshini’s father reportedly asked her to have an abortion. “He said ‘you terminate the pregnancy and live without children for three years and I will accept the marriage’,” The News Minute quoted Varshini as saying. “I told him that I won’t kill my baby irrespective of what he feels. I think he planned this because he didn’t want the baby to be a problem after they killed Pranay, so that they could take me back easily.”
Varshini said she and her husband feared that her parents would try to harm them. “…but we never thought they would do it in full public view,” she added. “All those who are involved should be punished. It is not enough if they go to jail, there they will be alive. They should die in a way that they killed Pranay, so that such caste killings never happen again. Pranay’s dream was that casteism should not exist and I will fight for his dream.”
Pranay was hacked to death on Friday in front of Varshini while they were leaving a hospital. The couple had eloped and got married in January as her family was against the relationship.
The Telangana Police have taken into custody three people, including Varshini’s father T Maruti Rao and uncle Sravan Kumar. Nalgonda Police said Rao, who is a realtor, had given an advance of Rs 5 lakh to professional killers to murder Pranay.
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