SIVAGANGA
Widowed at a very young age of 24, C. Davamani, wife of V. Chandrasekar (32), one of the three Scheduled Castes people hacked to death at Kachanatham village in Sivaganga district, looked crumbled as her two children were playing around.
On Saturday, when The Hindu visited the village, the young woman, in a faded night gown, was seen starring at the field right opposite her house, where the body of her husband was buried along with the bodies of two others, hacked to death by members of dominant community on the night of May 28.
Her five-year-old hearing impaired daughter and seven-year-old son played around, little realising that they lost their father and their mother had a bleak future. She had been crying unstoppably and could hardly talk. “If the government gets me a job, I will take care of my children,” she said in a broken voice.
A Class X dropout, Davamani got married at the age of 18 years after completing a diploma course in nursing. She lived in the village with her children and her husband worked in Coimbatore as driver. He had come to the village for the temple festival when his life was cut short.
If Davamani had lost her husband, V. Vijaya (55), her mother-in-law, lost her second son in a gap of three months. Her other son, Magarajan (30), had died in February after an illness. A mother of seven children – six boys and a girl – Vijaya had lost three sons – all died young – due to mysterious diseases.
Davamani said she had attended an interview for the post of noon-meal organiser. But B. Pandiaraja, member, Vigilance Monitoring Committee, SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, who visited the village, had asked her to wait for a better offer.