K’taka court gives death penalty to 4 for killing inter-caste couple in ’19 hate crime
A Karnataka court sentenced four family members to death for the 2019 murder of an inter-caste couple in Gajendragad, triggering widespread outrage.
A district court in Karnataka has sentenced four members of a family to death for murdering an inter-caste couple in Lakkalakatti village of Gajendragad taluk in 2019.
The victims, Ramesh Madar, 29, and Gangamma Rathod, 23, were killed in broad daylight by members of Gangamma’s family. Madar belonged to a Scheduled Caste community while Rathod was from the Banjara community, classified as Other Backward Classes (OBC).
The Gadag district court found Rathod’s brothers Ravikumar Rathod, 27, and Ramesh Rathod, 28, along with her uncles Shivappa Rathod, 25, and Parashurama Rathod, 39, guilty of the murders. Parashurama worked as a driver with the Kalyana Karnataka Road Transport Corporation.
The couple is survived by two children.
Senior Gadag police officers confirmed that the four were given the death penalty.
The attack occurred when the couple returned to their village for Diwali celebrations in 2019. “Gangamma’s brothers forcibly entered their home, dragged them outside and murdered them in full view of villagers,” said Gadag superintendent of police Baba Saheb Nemagouder.
The incident was captured on video and circulated on social media, triggering widespread outrage.
According to Gajendragad police circle inspector Siddappa Bilagi, the couple had been in a relationship for over five years before marrying at a registrar’s office on April 2, 2017, despite opposition from Rathod’s family.
Gadag district principal and sessions judge Basavaraj pronounced the death penalty for all four convicts on Wednesday. They were found guilty of premeditated murder and disrupting social harmony.
Wednesday’s order, made public on Thursday, came as the Supreme Court separately reaffirmed that not every case of multiple murders qualifies as a “rarest of rare” instance warranting the death penalty, particularly when there is potential for reform.
The top court bench commuted the death sentence of a man convicted of murdering his wife and four minor daughters, sentencing him instead to life imprisonment without remission. The court underscored that while the crime was brutal and deeply disturbing, the absence of criminal antecedents, favourable prison reports indicating a scope for rehabilitation and legal precedents weighed against imposing capital punishment.
