Honour killings ‘chillingly’ common in Haryana villages:

Beaten and beheaded

Media in India are expressing anger over the ‘horrific’ killing of a couple who were planning to marry despite family opposition.

Police said 23-year-old Dharmender Barak was beaten and beheaded and his 20-year-old girlfriend Nidhi killed in Rohtak district in the northern state of Haryana in what the Indian NDTV called “a shocking example of medieval-style killings in the name of family honour”.

The parents of Nidhi being produced by the police at a court in Rohtak, Haryana.

The couple were college students and were planning to get married, a move allegedly opposed by the girl’s family. The couple had left their homes in the village on Tuesday morning and did not return as they had planned to get married.

But Nidhi’s family had contacted her on Wednesday morning and asked her to return home after reportedly assuring her that she and her fiance would come to no harm. But when the couple returned to the village, the girl’s relatives beat her to death and then cremated her. They then beheaded the young man and threw his body out into the street.

Police are investigating why the man’s family had not registered the crime with police after the incident. Nidhi’s parents, brother and one other person have been held over the murders.

Dharmender and Nidhi were allegedly killed by members of the woman’s family in Garnauthi village in Rohtak on Wednesday evening. The BBC’s Zubair Ahmed was in the village when the bodies were being cremated.

He reported that the villagers attending the funeral said they had had no option but to kill the couple. Villagers said the couple were forbidden from having a relationship because of traditional caste rules governing marriage in parts of northern India.

Such killings are “chillingly common in villages of Haryana dominated by the lawless ‘khap panchayats’ (caste councils of village elders) who forbid marriages within the same village or same caste”, the report said. It adds that the Haryana Human Rights Commission has taken note of the killings and asked for a report from the police. Women’s rights groups have also expressed “deep shock and anguish” over the incident.

“Such barbaric crimes continue unabated and reminding of medieval period,” The Deccan Herald quotes a woman’s rights activist as saying.

Mamata Sharma, chief of the National Commission for Women, says “this killing should be treated like a murder case and the guilty must be punished”.

The CNN-IBN website says it is “more shocking” that woman’s girl’s father, Billu, shows “no remorse”. “I have no regrets. What happened is correct and should happen in the future too for society’s good,” the website quoted him as saying.

The Hindu newspaper reported that youth was beheaded and his body dumped in front of his house in Rohtak. “Despite the Supreme Court’s strictures, Haryana’s shame through honour killings continued as a couple were brutally killed in full public view on Wednesday at Gharnavathi in Rohtak, home district of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

“Nidhi Barak, 20, was lynched by her own family and they broke the limbs of Dharmendra Barak, 23, before beheading him and dumping the body in front of his house. The police have arrested Nidhi’s parents, brother and uncle and are on the lookout for others involved in the killing. Some witnesses have also been detained.

“Her family rushed to cremate Nidhi’s body, but Kalanaur, SHO, Ramesh Kumar reached the spot with a police party and recovered the half-burnt body, which along with Dharmendra’s, was sent for autopsy. Nidhi’s family, which runs a thriving dog-breeding business, is said to wield major influence in the region. Dharmendra’s family is into farming.

“The families, of the same gotra, told the police that the couple eloped on Tuesday to get married in Delhi, 90 km away.

“The brutal killing is yet another reminder of the power ‘khap panchayats’ wield, issuing diktats against marriages within the same ‘gotra’ (clan) and in the same village or even ‘bhaichara’ (brotherhood). In Haryana, there have been numerous cases of couples having defied the Khap diktat and paid the price with their lives.

“Last year, the Supreme Court asked its amicus curiae and State governments to devise a legal regime that could prevent Taliban-like groups from inciting executions of couples of the same gotras. NGO Shakti Vahini had petitioned the court for intervention against extra-judicial killings in the name of community honour, and for holding khap members accountable for such crimes. In 2011, the court ruled that honour killings came under the category of the rarest of rare cases and those indulging in such crimes should be awarded death penalty.

“As in the past, mindful of the influence of the ‘khaps’ in politics, most of the parties, especially the ruling Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal, have avoided comments on the Rohtak killing. However, Haryana Janhit Congress chief Kuldip Bishnoi has condemned the incident.”

Reiterating the AIDWA’s demand for separate legislation against honour killings, she pointed out that a memorandum containing over one lakh signatures was submitted to the Union Law Minister a few months ago, along with draft legislation. However, the draft was not tabled in Parliament owing to opposition from the Haryana government and pressure from the khaps.