What was initially believed to be a caste-related crime perpetrated on a Dalit family soon became a heinous case of murder and sexual assault as the police found that similar assaults had taken place in the same village. Investigators are yet to zero in on the killer

On February 22, in Vellamputhur village in Villupuram district, an eight-year-old Dalit boy was found murdered in his home. His mother and 13-year-year-old sister were found with severe head injuries.

The brutally assaulted Dalit woman and her daughter, who are undergoing treatment at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), continue to be critical. “There is no improvement in their health condition and the duo are critical,” said a doctor.

The mother, who was in a semi-conscious state, is now unconscious and on ventilator support as is the girl. Both have suffered fractures on the skull and are undergoing treatment at the Neuro Intensive Care Unit in Jipmer.

Suspecting sexual assault, doctors examined the minor girl. “We are awaiting the vaginal swab test report from the forensic science laboratory,” said a doctor. No surgery had been performed so far, he said, and added that the hospital was giving the best possible treatment to them.

With headlines screaming that yet another Dalit family had been brutally attacked in north Tamil Nadu, the police and the local population expected a sharp polarisation, with Dalits on one side and non-Dalits on the other. But as facts emerged, the caste angle dulled. It appeared that a sexual predator was on the prowl, who had used the same modus operandi on at least two other victims in the area.

Offering support: DMK leader K. Ponmudi recently met the surviving children of the woman who was attacked in Vellamputhur, Villupuram district. B. Jothi Ramalingam | Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam

Dispute over land

Initial inquiries, however, led to the suspicion that the murder could have been committed by an influential dominant caste man, Rajendran, who had an ongoing land dispute with the widowed Dalit woman.

The dispute was regarding 14 cents of land owned by the woman’s husband. Before he died, Rajendran had apparently bought 10 cents from the husband but had entered into an arrangement wherein he would take 14 cents of their land but give them 4 cents elsewhere.

The woman’s son said that Rajendran allegedly reneged on his promise and demanded more money to let the family use his land after four years.

With a total population of 1,678 people, Vellamputhur village in Tirukoilur taluk has about 369 families. Of them, around 65 are Dalits. On the whole, a third of the village’s population are Dalits. The focus of the media and human rights organisation fell on Rajendran who was thought to have had a motive — land.

However, the investigation took a dramatic turn when they came to know that at least two non-Dalit women from the other side of the village — where the dominant non-Dalit castes lived — had admitted to being at the receiving end of similar attacks.

At the Arakandanallur police station, the revolved how the signature of all three crimes were identical: use of blunt force to the head, incapacitating the victim, making them unconscious; female victims found dishevelled, possibly indicative of sexual assault, and not remembering anything as a result of head injury. Also, children who were too young were left unharmed. The February 22 attack was possibly the first time the perpetrator had killed his victim.

The police realised that there were other cases involving non-Dalit victims in the village that were similar and that they didn’t have to deal with a sensitive case that had the potential of turning into a political issue.

Attack after dark

Residents of Vellamputhur helped this correspondent piece together the previous attacks. Sometime in May last year, Kayalvizhi (name changed), who is in her mid-thirties, was sleeping inside her house with her teenaged daughter and two other children while her husband was sleeping outside on a cot. In the dead of the night, they were attacked. The attack was discovered only early in the morning when the neighbours found her husband bleeding from his head.

“There was so much blood underneath the cot. When we went inside, his wife and 16-year-old daughter were also bleeding from their ears. At first, we thought they had attempted suicide by putting poison into their ears,” said their neighbour. The husband too said that he couldn’t remember much about what happened that day.

The ‘poison in the ear’ idea was proposed by Kayalvizhi’s husband during a police inquiry. Despite the Villupuram government hospital stating that the three had suffered head injuries, the police had apparently accepted the man’s version of the events, thinking there wasn’t much more to the episode. In hindsight, the police officials say that the man could have lied to cover up the possible sexual assault of his minor daughter.

“It could be one of the reasons why he didn’t fully tell us the truth back then,” said the police official involved in the investigation. Another factor could have been that the victims may not have genuinely remembered the events as a result of the head injuries they suffered.

The discharge reports of Kayalvizhi, her husband and daughter couldn’t be accessed as the police had allegedly taken possession.

The case with Ramalakshmi (name changed) was almost similar. One night in October last year, she went to sleep with her youngest daughter beside her in the hall of her slightly more spacious house but woke up at a hospital, feeling disoriented.

She was found unconscious by her elder daughter, who had come back in the morning from her grandmother’s house nearby to get ready for school. “She apparently stepped on the blood that I was lying on. My bed and pillows were soaked in blood,” she said.

Ramalakshmi’s neighbour, who saw her first, said she was covered in mud too. When she and others went around the house, they found a pool of blood underneath a lemon tree in the backyard. “At first, we thought she was having complications because of an abortion she had undergone. We thought she had vomited blood, but then we realised she had head injuries,” said her neighbour.

The story from this point onward is similar to Kayalvizhi’s. When asked by the hospital authorities, she said she fell off the cot. Her discharge slip from Jipmer, Puducherry, dated October 6, 2017, said she suffered ‘an accidental fall from bed.’

While Ramalakshmi said she didn’t remember anything that she told the doctors, the claim that she suffered a head injury after falling from the bed didn’t sync with the circumstances of the incident. Ramalakshmi was found with mud all over her body in the hall, whereas the cot was in the other room.

Her neighbours surmised that she was hit on the head, taken outside the house to the lemon tree and then dragged back in. One person who saw her first said her clothes were dishevelled, which could suggest sexual assault. Ramalakshmi said her gold thali was missing after the attack.

Why did these victims not report such a serious attack on them? The police said that the families didn’t want to publicly admit that married women had been sexually assaulted. It seemed police too were lax, choosing to not dig deep into these incidents, until this time around.

Whodunit then?

The police officials The Hindu spoke to did not seem to agree that it was just one person who was going around smacking people on their head and sexually assaulting young women. Since two or more people were being attacked without giving a chance for anyone to raise an alarm, a few police officials believed that this was a handiwork of “more than one person.”

However, the police also pointed out that common sense dictated that perpetrators who committed rape and sexual assaults were typically lone wolves.

The perpetrator also seemed to pick his victim and location carefully and systematically: he chose houses that were isolated or situated in a corner, away from the eyes of the village. Police sources said they were looking at the possibility of migrant labourers from other States committing such crimes and doing a disappearing act.

“He is doing it for the sexual thrill. He would hit anyone who interferes. And he is clearly not doing it for money, as he has not stolen money from the homes. He takes away only the valuables on the victims,” said the police official. He also added that the police could not find any prints or scent.

Not to be discounted

While the narrative that there is a sexual predator who likes hitting his young female victims with a blunt object before assaulting them may seem plausible, Pandian, executive director, Social Awareness Society For Youth, reiterated that police investigation should not rule out the caste factor prematurely.

“Last year, a tribal family [Irula tribe] was subjected to this kind of brutal attack. This year, the woman’s family was subjected to brutal murder, rape and serious injuries,” says Pandian.

The woman’s son, echoed this view. He said the police should investigate thoroughly before shifting their focus onto the mystery rapist on the loose.

While the case has generated considerable interest, the fact-finding report prepared by the SASY urged the police department to conduct a fair investigation.