On December 2, constable Kongara Nagamani was on the way to her workplace, the Hayathnagar police station in Hyderabad, to attend a meeting at 9 am.
Nagamani, 27, was riding her bike when her husband called to check on her. Although they had known each other for 10 years, having studied in the same high school, the two had been married for just three weeks.
“The call lasted 25 seconds,” her husband, Bandari Srikkanth recalled. “For the first 10 seconds, she spoke normally but suddenly she said ‘My brother has come to kill me’ and then the call got cut.”
At the police station, when Nagamani did not turn up for the meeting, her colleagues wondered what had happened. Ten minutes later, they received a phone call informing them that she had been murdered. Later that day, Nagamani’s brother, Pramesh, surrendered, and according to the police, confessed to the murder.
The daylight killing of a police constable has left many, including Nagamani’s colleagues, shaken. A police constable said, “We assumed that people would be scared of attacking a policewoman.” Another added: “I think the public is a bit on an edge. They are wondering how the police will protect them if we cannot protect ourselves.”
But a policewoman who sat on the desk next to Nagamani, who had known her for three years and saw her as a close friend, recalled Nagamani confiding in her about her family opposing her decision to marry a man from the Scheduled Caste Mala community, which they perceived as lower in status to them. Nagamani’s family belonged to the Kuruba community, listed among the Other Backward Classes.
“For her brother, it didn’t matter whether she was a constable or not,” said the policewoman. “He was furious at their marriage and decided to lash out.”
Intercaste marriages between Dalit men and higher-caste women often provoke an antagonistic, even violent response from the brides’ families. But usually, the target of violence in such cases known as “honour killings” is the man, not the woman.
Several media reports on Nagamani’s murder have highlighted that the police are considering a property dispute between the siblings as a possible motive for the murder.
Nagamani’s husband, Srikkanth, however, dismissed this as implausible. In 2017, Nagamani had gifted her share of the family land to her brother, Parmesh, he said, showing Scroll a copy of the gift settlement deed. “Her uncle forced her to write off her property in Parmesh’s name,” he explained.
Besides, he pointed out the police were aware of the threat that Parmesh posed to the newly-wedded couple. The day they got married in a temple in Ibrahimpatnam, the block where their families lived, the couple had contacted the local police and sought protection from Parmesh. “Her brother and I were called to the police station and they counselled him,” Srikkanth recalled. “They asked him to stay away from us and he seemed to agree.”
Jhansi Geddam of the Dalit Sthree Sakthi criticised the police’s attempts to foreground property dispute as a motive and underplay the caste divide. Geddam, the national convenor of the group that works for the protection and promotion of human rights among Dalit and Adivasi women and girls, said this was in keeping with the larger silence that surrounded crimes against intercaste couples.
“Only when there is a murder does the media report it,” she said. “But we hear of dozens of cases of attacks happening on Dalit grooms.”
For Srikkanth, the reason his wife was killed is clear. “This was purely a caste-related murder and nothing else,” he said.
A ‘daring’ woman
Described by her colleague as “daring”, Nagamani was a fiercely independent woman. Orphaned at the age of 15, she had overcome a harsh childhood and youth to join the police force.
“As women, we fear travelling at odd hours,” said a colleague at the Hayathnagar police station. “But for Nagamani it didn’t matter how late her shift ended. She would sit on her bike, plug in her earphones and drive off into the night.”
The morning Nagamani was murdered, it was a looming late-night shift that made her abruptly change her commute plans.
She was with her husband at his parents’ house in the village of Raipole in Ibrahimpatnam. Not for the first time, she reassured her parents-in-law who were worried about retribution against her for marrying their son, recalled B Srinivas, Srikkanth’s older brother.
Srikkanth was going to drop Nagamani to work. But moments before leaving, the couple changed their minds – Nagamani’s shift was to end at 3 am the next day and she needed her own bike to get back home, 30 km away, after work.
Srikkanth left first while Nagamani bid goodbye to her in-laws and set off to work a few minutes later.
About 10-15 minutes later, Srinivas, who was at home in Raipole, received a panicked call from Srikkanth asking him to retrace Nagamani’s route to check if she was alright. Srinivas found her about 2 km from their house, lying in the middle of the road in a pool of blood. Her throat had been slit and there was a huge gash on her face.
“I rushed to her side, she was still alive,” he recalled. “I looked around and there was nobody on the road. It was very strange because that road always had people around during that time.”
Nagamani’s brother-in-law then called the ambulance and the police. “Nobody picked up and I saw her die a few moments later,” he said.
Not knowing what to do, Srinivas went back home and returned with the rest of his family, including Srikkanth. The family sat with Nagamani’s body until the police arrived.
A love story
Srikkanth had met Nagamani when he was in class 9. “Both OBC and SC students would sit together in class,” he said. “I have friends from that community too,” he added, referring to the Kuruba caste that Nagamani belonged to. “I have gone to their houses and they have come to mine. But some older people would sometimes treat us differently.”
Nagamani was a middle child: she had an older sister and a younger brother. Her father had died over 20 years ago and her mother had died in 2012, said Srikkanth.
When Nagamani was still a minor, her family got her married. “She came back within a few days,” Srikkanth said. Subsequently, Nagamani was sent away to live in a hostel until she finished her studies.
Nagamani and Srikkanth continued their relationship through several ups and downs. “We were waiting to get to a stage in our careers where both of us had secure jobs and a good income,” he said.
The son of farmers, Srikkanth got a job around eight years ago as a lab assistant at the Central Research Institute of Dryland Agriculture in Hyderabad. Nagamani became a constable in 2021.
“I had to start working soon after school because of financial pressures but she went on to do her degree,” Srikkanth said. “It was her mother’s dream for her to join the police.”
After Nagamani joined the police and Srikkanth’s older brother, Srinivas, got married, the couple began to discuss their own marriage plans.
“We were always happy for them,” said Srinivas. “Nagamani would keep assuring us that everything would turn out fine.”
Srikkant recalled that the couple had a small wedding on November 10. “Nobody from her side attended the wedding,” he said. “Only a few of my family members and friends were present.”
The couple had modest dreams. After a decade of struggle, all they wanted was to buy a house and live together. “She would say that I should stop shouldering so much responsibility and pressure and that I should relax and allow her to take care of me,” he said, looking at the ground, as he had for the entire conversation.
Because Parmesh was her younger brother, Nagamani did not think he was capable of causing them any real harm, Srikkanth said. “He was a child just a few years ago. Then he got this land, sold it and got some money,” he said, referring to the ancestral land that Nagamani gifted to Parmesh. “He changed after that.”
Srikkanth said they found out later that he had planted people to watch their movements. His brother Srinivas recalled seeing a man standing outside their house on the morning of December 2, before Nagamani left for work. He said he suspected he had relayed her movements to Parmesh.
Srinivas runs a mutton shop and milk booth in the village. He said that he would see Parmesh drive past his shop almost every day. Until recently, Parmesh even bought mutton from his shop. “He would also speak to me a little,” recalled Srinivas. “But then when discussions of marriage started, he stopped coming to my shop and even talking to me.”
Until then, Srikkanth’s family had not experienced any overt form of caste-based discrimination in the village. Each community had their own temple, he said, and his family steered clear of the temples of the higher castes.
Srikkanth’s father, Bandari Sattya, said he had been born and raised in the village. “We have not witnessed any big caste conflict in all these years,” said the elderly man. “I never expected something like this to happen here.”
An invisible caste faultline
But Nagamani’s killing has revealed that the caste faultline, although barely visible, runs deep in the village.
In the aftermath of the murder, local panchayat leaders had visited the house of Nagamani’s family, not theirs, said Srikkanth. “It is because there are more voters from that community than ours.” He added that despite Nagamani being a member of the police force, the police were “trying to divert the issue by making this about property”.
Geddam, the Dalit and gender rights activist, said caste violence is a pressing problem in the Telugu states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. “Now that the Dalit population is advancing in terms of education and career opportunities, it has led to an increase in attacks on them,” she said.
Geddam said intercaste couples often approach her team for support fearing harm from their families. Like in Nagamani’s case, the police tend not to protect intercaste couples, instead choosing to counsel their families, urging them to accept the relationship.
She recalled the case of Pranay Kumar, a Dalit man, who was murdered by his wife’s family in her presence in 2018. “Even in Pranay’s case, there was counselling yet the police were unable to prevent the murder or provide any protection,” Geedam said.
At the Hayathnagar police station, Nagamani’s friend and colleague hasn’t come to terms with her death. “It feels like a family member has died,” she said.
In Raipole village, the doors of Nagamani and Parmesh’s home were locked when Scroll visited. Neighbours said the house had been empty since the murder. Nagamani’s uncle and other relatives who lived close by refused to speak, claiming they had nothing to do with the family.
At Srikkanth’s home, barely a kilometre away, there is no photograph of Nagamani. Houses in mourning usually garland a photograph of the deceased. “We were only married for 20 days,” said Srikkanth. “We didn’t even have time to print any photos.”
The young man’s phone screen featured a photo of the couple taken immediately after their wedding. Nagamani is smiling broadly in the picture.
All photographs by Johanna Deeksha.
