Man hires goons to kill daughter in Tamil Nadu

Pride and prejudice: Honour killing executed with lethal injection

Mari Selvi, the only daughter of Rangasamy, was killed by a gang of three — Murthy, Velmurugan and Balu. Balu, working as a compounder in the Government Rajaji Hospital, allegedly administered her a lethal dose at the behest of the girl’s father at their home in S S Colony, police said on Thursday.

 Rangasamy was perturbed by his daughter’s allegedly “promiscuous ways” and “illicit love affairs”, police said quoting from the complaint by the girl’s mother, Lakshmi.

For some time, Rangasamy had packed off his daughter to his brother’s house in Chennai but Mari was again allegedly involved in a romantic relationship here too, police said, adding, this had “angered” her father.

On Tuesday when the girl’s mother was out, Rangasamy told Mari that three people would be coming to fix their refrigerator. The goons walked in and two of them — Murthy and Velmurugan — held the girl and Balu who had come prepared with a lethal dose of a poisonous vial forcibly injected it into Mari.

The hapless girl, shouting in pain, collapsed after which Balu thrust the poisonous fluid into her orally also, police said.

Before collapsing completely, Mari told her mother, who by then had returned home, that her father was “watching through a window”.

Father arrested

Rangasamy went into hiding but was arrested by the Madurai police on Wednesday night and all the four accused have been remanded to judicial custody and are in Madurai central jail, sources said.

According to preliminary investigation, Rangasamy told the police that he took recourse to this extreme step “to uphold his family honour”, as marriage for Mari with one of their kin was being finalised. Further investigations are on, police said.