Death for love

T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
in Sonepat and Delhi
Lack of governmental action to stop honor killings
comes up for criticism even as the crime continues
unabated.
SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

The police removing the body of a girl from

Wazirpur who was found dead in a car at Ashok
Vihar in New Delhi on June 22.

NOTHING, not even the death penalty awarded by a

Karnal court to five people in the Manoj-Babli case on
March 30 this year, seems to deter honor killings in India.
In the past few months, there has been a spate of
murders in the name of protecting family or community
honor in areas adjoining the national capital region.
In the latest such incident, Sham Mohammad, 18, a
Muslim, and his friend, Reena, 16, a Hindu, were found
dead on the premises of a school in Samain village of
Fatehabad district in Haryana on July 4. The boy had been
bludgeoned to death and one of his eyes was almost
gouged out, while the girl had apparently been forced to
consume poison. The police arrested the girl's maternal
uncles and a few others in connection with the case.

The youngsters had studied in the same school and when

the families came to know of their friendship, the boy was
sent away to Punjab and the girl discontinued her studies.
Sham had come to his native place for a vacation when
the incident occurred.

Significantly, persistent interventions by organizations

such as the All India Democratic Women's Association
(AIDWA) have emboldened people to report cases of
honor killings to the police. But governments have been
accused of showing a lack of will in dealing with the
situation. Recently, the Supreme Court too voiced its
concern over the lack of governmental action to stop
honor killings.

On June 21, taking cognizance of a public interest petition

filed by the non-governmental organization Shakti Vahini,
a Division Bench of the Supreme Court issued notice to
the Centre and eight State governments – Haryana,
Punjab, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Himachal
Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh – seeking an
action plan. The NGO argued that while killing for honor
was an extreme reaction, victims were often subjected to
long-term, low-level physical abuse and bullying as a
punishment for “bringing dishonor on the family”. Such
abuse included battery, torture, mutilation, rape, forced
marriage, and imprisonment within the home. These
premeditated crimes were intended to protect the family
honor by preventing and punishing violations of
community norms of behavior, especially sexual behavior
of women.

Many a time, the petition said, harassment and threats

drove young couples to suicide. The law enforcement
agencies, it said, were mute spectators, intervening only
after an incident had happened. They were caught in the
“midst of lack of political will to act against such feudal
forces as these forces also represent vote banks”, it said.

The petition demanded that the Supreme Court lay down

a series of guidelines for law enforcement agencies to
deal with such crimes on the pattern of the guidelines for
combating sexual harassment at the workplace. It also
pointed out how the States had failed to comply with the
directions issued by the court in 2006 ( Lata Singh vs.
State of Uttar Pradesh and Another) to ensure that no one
harassed or threatened couples who married out of caste
or religion.

The court directed that the police should institute criminal

proceedings against anyone who issued or carried out
threats of violence. “There is nothing honorable in these
killings and, in fact, they are nothing but barbaric and
shameful acts of murder committed by brutal, feudal-
minded persons who deserve harsh punishment,” it said.

The petitioner contended that as a state party to the

United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the
Government of India was under obligation to see that
discrimination against women in matters relating to
family and marriage was eliminated. This included
ensuring that informal decision-making bodies such as
khap panchayat (caste councils) were restrained from
enforcing their dicta and interfering with the right of
women to choose their spouses, the petition said. Also, as
a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
India had an obligation to protect the lives, rights and
liberty of individuals and protect them from such heinous
crimes, it said.

There has been a strident demand, especially after the

Carnal court judgment, to amend the Hindu Marriage Act,
1955, in order to prevent same- gotra marriages. This has
been at the centre of the latest debate on honor killings.
On June 19, the Delhi High Court dismissed a petition
demanding a ban on same- gotra marriages. Castigating
the petitioner for “wasting the time of the court”, the
judges demanded to know which Hindu text prescribed
banning of sagotra (same clan) marriages.

The petition in the High Court was filed soon after the
Supreme Court dismissed a similar one on the grounds of
jurisdiction. Arguing that same- gotra marriages were
violative of fundamental rights and against Hindu
tradition, the petitioner wanted the court to appoint a
commission that would suggest amendments to the
Hindu Marriage Act in order to prohibit such marriages.

But not all honor killings in the recent past were

instigated by caste councils. For instance, on June 25, two
cousins, aged 14 and 12, of Mohalla Kot in the old city of
Sonepat district were battered and strangled allegedly by
their own grandmother and paternal uncles. Their bodies
were thrown amidst hyacinths on the embankment of the
Western Yamuna Canal.
 SANDEEP SAXENA

MEMBERS OF VARIOUS women's organizations

demonstrating at India Gate in New Delhi against
honor killings, on June 30.

Mohalla Kot is a part of Sonepat that is cut off from the

city. Its narrow by lanes make access to it in any big four-
wheel vehicle difficult. People here keep to themselves
and, not surprisingly, very few were willing to talk about
the murder of the two children. The grandmother and the
uncles are reported to have said that they killed the girls
for having an illicit liaison with their 16-year-old
stepbrother, who has been arrested and booked for rape.

There has not been much sympathy for the slain children
either from the police or the larger society. Media reports
have constantly referred to the girls as having had an
“affair” with their cousin. Even the police viewed the
incident as a normal outcome of a wrong that had been
committed by the girls.

“It is not a case of honor killing. It is a case of illicit

relations. The family has a history of its members being
arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances Act,” K.K. Rao, Sonepat's Superintendent of
Police, told Frontline. According to a section of the police,
the girls were “of age” and not minors though the post-
mortem and school records revealed otherwise. They had
been subjected to sexual intercourse as well. But whether
the arrested minor boy is the real culprit or not is now
under the scanner.

The circumstances in which the girls lived were pathetic,

to say the least. The father of the 14-year-old girl was in
jail and the mother was living away from home. The
parents of the other girl, too, were living away from the
family. A relative of one of the slain girls said the children
were innocent.

The Wazirpur murders

The triple murders in Wazirpur, near Delhi, were equally

horrific. The landed Gujjar and Jat communities in the
village, an island in the midst of posh colonies in Ashok
Vihar, became wealthy overnight, thanks to the real
estate boom. Shops here display the latest brands and
swanky cars whizz past its roads. Most of the houses are
multi-storeyed. Young boys and girls dressed up in the
latest fashion move around with nonchalance.

“The mentality of the residents of Wazirpur village is

mediaeval despite all the modern amenities,” said a
resident. “The boys here do nothing. They just roam
around. There is a lot of easy money as land prices have
gone up tremendously.”

The village has a chaupal (a place for panchayat and

public meetings), used mostly by the men of the
dominant castes, as in much of rural North India, where
the elders sit and smoke their hookahs. It was in this
setting that Kuldeep, a Rajput boy, and Monica, a Gujjar,
decided to tie the knot four years ago. They were the first
couple to have married out of caste in the 400-year-old
village.

On June 21, two of the girl's cousins, in their early 20s,

killed them in the name of honor. The next day, another
girl, a cousin of Monica, too, was found murdered. The
boys, who confessed to the crime, said they could not
bear the taunts of the villagers after the girls had
supposedly “shamed” them, one by marrying out of caste
and the other by aspiring to be a model.

Less than a week earlier, a girl and a boy belonging to

two different castes were electrocuted by the girl's
parents and maternal uncles in a colony in north-east
Delhi. These are not just stray incidents.

In nearby Haryana, on June 21, two teenagers were found

murdered in a village in Bhiwani district. Six members of
the girl's family were arrested. The girl was a student of
Class XI. Six days later, a couple belonging to two
different castes in Dheera village killed themselves by
jumping in front of a train following resistance to their
relationship.

In April this year, in Bhainswal village in Sonepat, a boy

strangled his 16-year-old sister for having a relationship
with a boy of the same village. A day later, the girl's
friend committed suicide. In October 2009, a Sonepat
couple, who married from the same gotra, had to face the
community's ire. The man was killed and his wife raped
after being lured to a place in Delhi.
It is clear that the matter of honor killings cannot be dealt
with by law alone. There also has to be some form of
social reform plan on the agenda of political parties, in
addition to an attitudinal change in the people.
Significantly, such crimes are committed more often in
States that have skewed child sex ratios and a high rate
of crime against women and children, and where
distributive justice in both economic and social terms is
very low.