Kandikonda Ramani was the daughter of flower sellers. At 24, she was on track to getting a Master’s degree in Chemistry, hoping to land a government job. Perhaps a college lectureship. She would have been the first in her family to graduate and draw a salaried income. That was the future she and her family had always pictured, living in a one-room-and-kitchen flat in a government housing colony on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

But on April 10, Ramani ended her life. Exactly a month after her ex-boyfriend, Manohar, drew his own blood with a syringe and injected Ramani in her forearm. He had HIV.

His infection was the reason Ramani’s parents refused to let them marry. Manohar thought if she was also infected with the virus, her parents would be left with no alternative but to let them marry, the police said after arresting him for attempted murder. Manohar is also Ramani’s second cousin.

While Ramani was........

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