Telangana honour killing | Faith, caste, patriarchy, and murder 

On the night of January 30 this year, Syed Ashrin Sulthana left home to marry Billipuram Nagaraju, the man she loved. Just over three months later, Nagaraju was killed by her relatives. Marri Ramu chronicles how a poignant inter-faith romance ended in tragedy

On the sultry evening of May 4, Nagaraju picked up his wife, Ashrin, from the house of his relative, Lingam, where he had dropped her in the afternoon. Waving goodbye to Lingam and promising to meet him soon, Nagaraju, a car showroom employee, rode his bike from Panjala Anil Kumar colony towards the couple’s rented home in the nearby Brindavan colony. That was the last time Lingam saw him.

The Kothapet-Victoria Memorial Home road in Saroornagar in Hyderabad was bustling at 8.45 p.m. Not too far from Panjala Anil Kumar colony, Nagaraju had to turn right to head home. On reaching the turn, he halted for a moment, waiting for the traffic to slow down.

Suddenly, two men riding a scooter intercepted the newly married couple. They jumped off their vehicle, rushed towards Nagaraju and Ashrin, and pushed them off the bike. Nagaraju’s helmet slipped off his head. One of the assailants hit him on the head with a steel rod. By the time Ashrin got up, the assailant had “hit Nagaraju’s head with the rod two to three times,” according to the First Information Report (FIR) issued by the Saroornagar police, filed on the complaint of Nagaraju’s relative, Talari Danaiah. The attacker then handed the rod to his associate, brandished a knife and tried to stab Nagaraju. Ashrin began screaming for help. “I pleaded with onlookers and passers-by with folded hands to save my husband, but no one responded,” she later said in interviews with the media.

As the knife somehow got bent, the first assailant again rushed towards Nagaraju, who was now lying motionless on the road, with the rod. Ashrin tried to block his way and hold his hands. She was in for a shock. “That is when I identified him as my elder brother Mobin,” she was quoted as saying by the police. As Ashrin resisted him, Syed Mobin Ahmed pushed her and repeatedly hit Nagaraju’s head with the rod, videos of the murder showed.

“I even pleaded with Mobin not to kill Nagaraju, saying I would return to the family with him, but he continued to attack Nagaraju,” Ashrin told the police.

Some bystanders tried to help the couple. Video clips in the public domain show one bystander throwing a helmet at the attackers and some hurling stones at them. “After confirming that Nagaraju was dead, Mobin and his acquaintance, identified as Ashrin’s elder sister’s husband, Mohammed Masood, fled the spot,” the complainant said.

Ashrin collapsed before Nagaraju’s body, crying inconsolably. The couple’s seven-year-old love story and 92-day-old inter-faith marriage had come to a gruesome, tragic end.