India: Inter-caste marriage murder

As reported by the Hindustan Times on 4 July 2019, a young inter-caste couple were found hacked to death in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi district in what is thought to be a case of Hindu honor killing. Although both man and wife were Dalits, there was opposition to the marriage right from the start since both belonged to a different sub-sect: The pregnant wife (21) was from the Pallar community and the husband (24) was from the Parayar community. Rolf Zeegers, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, comments: "Although this brutal killing did not involve Christians, it is a clear indication of how strong the influence of the cast system still is in India. The difference in caste in a marriage can be felt to be so shaming that a family can feel obliged to go to the extreme of killing a newly married couple in order to restore a family"s honor. It is well known that most Christians are Dalits and come from the lowest castes. This means Christians will also encounter such problems."