Kausalya wants her mother punished

She had just won the daunting legal battle seeking justice for her husband’s brutal murder, sending her father and his aides in the crime to the gallows. Her face impassive but voice determined. Kausalya Shankar, 22, said the fight was not over until the three persons acquitted, including her mother too are appropriately punished.

"Though I have a different view with regard to the capital punishment, the judgement has firmed up my belief in judiciary,’’ Kausalya said welcoming the judgement on Tuesday.

"It is for the first time in the country that such a strong verdict has been pronounced in an honour killing case. So our wait did not go in vain. I will appeal against the acquittal of Annalakshmi, Pandithurai and Prasanna Kumar," she said, coming out of her in–law’s house at Komaralingam village near Udumalpet.

Annalakshmi is Kausalya’s mother and Panduthurai, her uncle, but she did not refer to their relationship with her. Kausalya, who kept away from the court proceedings and stayed indoors when the judgment came out, was getting updates through news channels and her friends. She said what made the trial unique was the fact that the accused had not been released on bail despite repeated pleas. "It shows that the trial court approached the case with the right perspective. So the judgment will serve as a precedent for all honour killing cases," she said. "Since most of the accused in the case were given death sentence, the judgment will work as a deterrent to caste chauvinists who indulged in honour killings. The judgment - double death sentence and double life to the accused - showed that the trial court did not want them to get away," she said. Kausalya, however, sought protection for her and her husband’s family in the wake of the verdict. "Even when the verdict was pronounced, there were unruly scenes on the court campus. So the police should provide them adequate protection," she said.

Kausalya said the judgment alone would not serve as a solution to honour killings. "A separate law against honour killings should be enacted. My battle would continue until such a law was passed,’’ she said.