Kerala has witnessed yet another dubious death and the public outcry about police insensitivity is getting louder. But what makes this death stand out is it has already been labelled an honour killing, though the verdict is still out on whether it is a murder or a case of accidental drowning. It certainly does not help that the state has witnessed four honour killings since 2014. The body of 23-year-old Kevin P Joseph, a Dalit Christian, was found floating in a stream a day after he went missing. Earlier, frantic pleas by Kevin’s father and the victim’s 20-year-old wife Neenu, a Roman Catholic, had fallen on the deaf ears of the local police.
Neenu had pleaded with the local police the entire Sunday asking them to search for her missing husband, but the station officer claimed he was busy with the chief minister’s functions in the district, which was hotly disputed by the latter. Yes, the state machinery did swing into action, top cops were suspended, but for the hapless family of Kevin, it all came a day too late. The Kerala police have been drawing quite a bit of flak, both for their insensitivity and excesses in recent times. Last month, Sreejith, of Varapuzha in Ernakulam, died in police custody after being wrongly picked up for questioning. There have been other instances too.
On Tuesday, just as Kevin’s funeral was underway, the main accused, Neenu’s brother Syanu Chacko, along with his father Chacko John, surrendered and were arrested. Now the case will be fought in the court. What queered the pitch for Kevin was the reality about having a Christian father and a Muslim mother. For Syanu, his marriage with a girl from a well-to-do Roman Catholic family about six months ago was under strain. It has now emerged that Syanu felt his marriage could fall apart if his sister persisted with her choice to stay with Kevin. It may well have been a case of the use of force gone awry and not quite a killing, but nobody can dispute it was a misplaced sense of honour that led to a young life getting snuffed out.
