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Video Editors: Sandeep Suman, Ashutosh Bhardwaj
(The story was first published in September 2018 and has been republished from The Quint’s archives after Amrutha’s father and the main accused in the caste-killing, Maruthi Rao, was found dead in a Hyderabad hotel on 8 March.)
Twenty-four-year-old Pranay and 21-year-old Amrutha’s love story was snuffed out after a murder conspiracy, stemming from honour and caste bias.
On 14 September, about 150 kms away from the main city of Hyderabad in Miryalguda, Pranay was hacked to death in broad daylight by goons hired by his father-in-law, Maruthi Rao, a businessman, who couldn’t accept that his daughter had married a man from a lower caste.
Sitting in their freshly-painted, two-storeyed house, plastered with posters seeking justice for Pranay, a distraught Amrutha narrates how the tragedy unfolded on 14 September.
Two months of planning, multiple meetings between the five main accused, fake sim cards and a deal worth Rs 1 crore – that's how Maruthi Rao, Amrutha's father, executed the murder. For Rao, who belonged to Vysya caste, his daughter falling in love with a Dalit man was nothing short of a crime.
Seven people, including Amrutha’s father, are in police custody. According to police, Maruthi Rao hatched the plot to eliminate Pranay with the help of Asgar Ali, Bari and Abdul Karim. Maruthi Rao's brother, T Shravan, and driver, S Shiva, are the other accused.
The police chief said the conspiracy was hatched in July. The deal was struck for Rs 1 crore though Asgar, and Bari had demanded Rs 2.5 crore. Maruthi Rao had paid Rs 15 lakh advance.
After questioning Maruthi Rao and others, police identified the killer as Subhash Sharma, a native of Bihar, whom Bari had met in Rajahmundry Central Jail.
"In the meantime, when Amrutha became pregnant, his father tried to pressurise her to abort because he was afraid that if Pranay is killed and a child is born to her daughter, it will lead to more problems. She, however, refused to abort," the SP said.
Amrutha says would often speak to her mother over the phone about her health or scheduled hospital visits. She says, although her mother was against the marriage too, she isn’t sure if she was a part of her father’s murder plot.
Amrutha says she befriended Pranay, her school senior, seven years ago when she was in Class 9. “We didn’t know at that time if it was love or attraction, but we kept talking.”
But their love, forbidden by caste, came with a sense of foreboding.
When asked how she mustered courage to marry against her family’s wishes, she promptly replies, “Because I loved him. I loved the way he cared for me.”
From 2016 to 2018, when Amrutha was under house-arrest, Pranay lived in constant fear, in hiding, and even dropped out of his college. On 31 January, when his family found out about their marriage, they were hesitant to accept the couple, fearing further intimidation from Amrutha's family. But, while wiping the dust off the framed photograph of Pranay as a child, his father, Balaswamy, tells The Quint why he changed his mind a few days after the marriage.
A large photo of Pranay, adorned with a garland, hangs on the wall of his courtyard, and barely a kilometre away stands Amrutha's opulent house, which houses a school that Amrutha’s father had set up under her name. But Amrutha no longer resides there. She calls a different address her home, and those who reside there her family.
Breaking down midway into our conversation, Pranay’s father says he has vowed to protect Amrutha and her child till his death.
As she continues her fight for justice and hopes that the accused, including her father, are hanged to death for killing her husband, Amrutha dreams of a future free of discrimination on the grounds of caste and creed for her unborn child.
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