Thursday, May 27, 2010

Honor Killings in India

Ms. Nirupama Pathak, a bright young business journalist based in Delhi, was brutally murdered recently by her family for carrying on an inter-caste relationship with a male colleague.

Honor killings in India claim over 1000 lives every year, according to an Indian website reporting such statistics. Last year, there were 100 honor killings recorded in the Indian state of Haryana alone, according to Washington Post.

In 2008, a judge in Haryana and Punjab, Kanwaljit Singh Ahluwalia, said the number of "couples hiding themselves in the corridors of court" had risen in recent years. In response, the government set up hotlines and opened shelters for the runaway couples.

Honor killings among Pakistanis and Muslims have received a lot of air time and print space in recent years. The unfortunate fact is that such honor killings still happen, and are not limited to specific countries or religions. This heinous practice cuts across faiths, social strata and incomes. A United Nations report says there are 5,000 honor killings every year across the globe. The crime is rampant in India as well as West and Southeast Asia. Even in the United Kingdom, the police contend there is at least one such murder every month among Asian communities.

According to a story in National Geographic, reports submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights show that honor killings have occurred in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda. In countries not submitting reports to the UN, the practice was condoned under the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban government in Afghanistan, and has been reported in Iraq and Iran.

But while honor killings have elicited considerable attention and outrage, human rights activists argue that they should be regarded as part of a much larger problem of violence against women.

In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Here's a video about an honor killing near Delhi:



Related Links:

Status of Women in India

Gender Inequality Worst in South Asia

Grinding Poverty in Resurgent India

Women's Status in Pakistan

A Tale of Tribal Terror

WEF Global Gender Gap Rankings 2009

India, Pakistan Contrasted 2010

Female Literacy Through Mobile Phones

Pakistan's Woman Speaker: Another Token or Real Change

Female Literacy Lags Far Behind in India and Pakistan

Female Genocide Unfolding in India

Honor Killings in India Website

16 comments:

Riaz Haq said...

BBC reports a case of honor killing of teenage couple in New Delhi:

Police in the Indian capital, Delhi, say a teenage girl and her boyfriend have been murdered in what they suspect is a gruesome case of "honour killing".

Aisha Saini and Yogesh Kumar, both 19, were beaten with metal rods and then electrocuted, police say. The girl's father and uncle have been arrested.

According to police, the girl's family disapproved of the relationship because her boyfriend was from another caste.

Cases of suspected "honour killing" are rare in the Indian capital.

Correspondents say the killings - long a taboo subject in India - are now being reported more often. There have been a number of recent cases in regions near Delhi.
'Bleeding'

The couple's mutilated bodies were recovered early on Monday after neighbours complained of a foul smell emanating from the uncle's house in Swaroop Nagar area in north-west Delhi.

"When we found the bodies - the couple's legs and hands were tied and they were bleeding," Delhi's deputy police commissioner NS Bundela told a news conference.

"The couple had been electrocuted as well, but we will wait for the full post-mortem report."

He said the girl's father and uncle had been arrested "but three suspects still remain at bay".

Police say Ms Saini's family feared she would elope with Yogesh and he was called to her uncle's home on Sunday on the pretext of discussing the relationship.

According to the Hindustan Times, neighbours went to the house on Sunday but were told that a family matter was being discussed.

A police official quoted in the newspaper said the assault went on for hours.

The couple were beaten with "iron rods and other blunt weapons" before being forced to sit on iron trunks to which live wires were attached and they were electrocuted, he said.

"This is a barbaric act of violence and should be condemned. It is my duty to get the perpetrators punished," Delhi's Women and Child Development Minister Kiran Walia said.

So-called "honour killings" are fairly common in parts of northern India, but rarely heard of in the Indian capital.

In April, five men were sentenced to death and one jailed for life over the 2007 murder of a young couple who married against the wishes of village elders in Haryana state, not far from Delhi.

Elders said they had violated local customs by marrying within the same sub-caste.

Social activists say many young men and women die every year in northern states like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Some commit suicide, others are killed - often with the approval, tacit or otherwise, of village councils that still wield considerable power.

Riaz Haq said...

Yet another honor killing in India:

ROHTAK: In yet another case of suspected honour killing, a minor girl was killed allegedly by a domestic help at the behest of her father after he found that she was having an affair with a boy in the neighbourhood, police said today.

Tapsaya Singh (15) was killed as her father Umed Singh suspected her of having an affair with the boy and plotted the crime with his domestic help, Rohtak SP S Satish Balan told reporters.

The girl's father lured his domestic help Mohan with the promise of a better future and money, he said.

The body of the victim was later dumped in a drain by the duo just outside the city, prior to which it had been lying on the fields, he said.

The body was found on December 22, twenty days after the father complained to the police that his daughter was missing and alleged that three boys may have kidnapped her.

Police said that a postmortem on the body confirmed that she had been strangulated. The domestic help had been missing since December 11 and was nabbed a day after the body was found.

Mohan in his confession to the police has said, "He (the father) asked me not to divulge anything to anybody. He also offered me Rs 10,000 and promised to get me married and look after me."

He allegedly told the police that he had called the girl to the murder spot.

Both of them have been remanded in judicial custody. Police said forensic tests were on to establish if the servant had indulged in an act of necrophilia.


Read more: Father allegedly kills daughter, honour killing suspected - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Father-allegedly-kills-daughter-honour-killing-suspected/articleshow/7166625.cms#ixzz19F02Mqn9

Riaz Haq said...

Anil Verma, an Indian diplomat in India, was reported for beating his wife. Here's the Times of India story:

In London, when contacted about MEA's directive, the Indian high commission said, "at this stage, we have no comment to make". Verma was not available for comments.

Verma allegedly attacked his wife after a heated argument last month, Daily Mail had reported.

A British daily on Sunday reported that Verma's wife, Paromita was found screaming with blood coming out of her nose. Her clothes were covered in blood and she had grabbed a tea towel to stem the flow.

The 'Daily Mail' also reported that Paromita has gone into hiding with her five-year-old son as she fears for her life. She left the home soon after the incident and has not returned since then.

"Throughout their time over here, Anil would boast about his diplomatic immunity and he would tell Paromita that no one could touch him because of it. He would goad her and say, 'Call the police as many times as you want. I've got diplomatic immunity'.

"He was shameless with it. He has been given so much power and he is abusing it. Paromita has gone into hiding and seriously fears that her safety and health are in jeopardy," a close family friend of the Vermas was quoted by the British newspaper as saying.

Paromita, who is working with Indian Railways and is on study leave, wants to remain in the UK on humanitarian grounds amid fears that she would be forcibly taken back to India. She has now sought extention of leave, a the daily said.

Verma is the third senior-most in the Indian mission after the high commissioner and the deputy high commissioner.

After the incident came to light, the MEA had said the high commission of India and the ministry were aware of it and were carefully looking into it.

"It involves sensitive and personal issues pertaining to individuals," it had said.

Recollecting the day of incident, Verma's family friend was quoted by the daily as saying in London, "Anil suddenly blew up on the morning of the incident. He was in his pyjamas and suddenly flew into a rage over the fact that there was a Christmas tree in the house that had been given to them from one of Paromita's relatives.

"He stormed up the stairs to grab the tree and throw it out but Paromita followed and tried to stop him because their son had been decorating it. He suddenly turned round and punched her full in the face, very hard. Paromita almost fell down the stairs but grabbed on to the bannister to steady herself.

"She was screaming and blood was pouring from her nose like a tap. Her clothes were covered in blood and she grabbed a tea towel to stem the flow. Anil did not say a word to her and did not seem to care. He started shouting at Paromita's mother, who was also in the house, abusing her too.

"The front door was open and Paromita ran outside, where her neighbours found her. They called the police and an ambulance also arrived at the scene. Neighbours took her into their house to comfort her until the police arrived," the daily said.

Police were called to the family's home in Golders Green, NorthWest London. Officers questioned the diplomat but they were powerless to arrest him because of his diplomatic status.

Nabanita said...

It's important to intervene in time and prevent honor killings. It's all about doing something.

At this moment we're battling an honor killing in Bihar. Here's the details

http://www.phototamasha.com/blogs/?p=543

Riaz Haq said...

Here are some interesting revelations about Gandhi's attitude toward women, as published in the Guardian newspaper:

During Gandhi's time as a dissident in South Africa, he discovered a male youth had been harassing two of his female followers. Gandhi responded by personally cutting the girls' hair off, to ensure the "sinner's eye" was "sterilised". Gandhi boasted of the incident in his writings, pushing the message to all Indians that women should carry responsibility for sexual attacks upon them. Such a legacy still lingers. In the summer of 2009, colleges in north India reacted to a spate of sexual harassment cases by banning women from wearing jeans, as western-style dress was too "provocative" for the males on campus.

Gandhi believed Indian women who were raped lost their value as human beings. He argued that fathers could be justified in killing daughters who had been sexually assaulted for the sake of family and community honour. He moderated his views towards the end of his life. But the damage was done, and the legacy lingers in every present-day Indian press report of a rape victim who commits suicide out of "shame". Gandhi also waged a war against contraceptives, labelling Indian women who used them as whores.

Like all men who wage a doomed war with their own sexual desires, Gandhi's behaviour around females would eventually become very, very odd. He took to sleeping with naked young women, including his own great-niece, in order to "test" his commitment to celibacy. The habit caused shock and outrage among his supporters. God knows how his wife felt.

Gandhi cemented, for another generation, the attitude that women were simply creatures that could bring either pride or shame to the men who owned them. Again, the legacy lingers. India today, according to the World Economic Forum, finds itself towards the very bottom of the gender equality index. Indian social campaigners battle heroically against such patriarchy. They battle dowry deaths. They battle the honour killings of teenage lovers. They battle Aids. They battle female foeticide and the abandonment of new-born girls.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/27/mohandas-gandhi-women-india

Riaz Haq said...

Here's an article from Peacework magazine about Mohandas K. Gandhi's misogyny and racism:

To make a hero out of someone dehumanizes them almost as much as demonizing them does. It serves no one to turn Mohandas Gandhi into a plaster saint (or a stone Ganesh).

Many of Gandhi’s statements and actions were reprehensible, some of which are mentioned elsewhere in this issue (such as the treatment of his children [5], see page 10). There isn’t space for a full critique, but a few themes are important to mention. One of Gandhi’s contributions to nonviolent thought is the idea that a true dedication to nonviolence requires striving for the complicated truth. As we appreciate Mohandas Gandhi’s many contributions to the development of nonviolent struggle, we can’t, if we are to appraise his legacy honestly, ignore his faults as well.

Gandhi campaigned vigorously to include women in every non-cooperation campaign, and organized against purdah. Yet, Gandhi, in his old age, regularly slept naked next to young girls, including his nieces, in order, he said, to test his commitment to brahmacharya, or celibacy. No matter how some try to contextualize these actions, from my perspective, he was abusing these girls.
Editor's Note: The following additional paragraph was edited from the printed version for reasons of space:

---------
His views about rape were misogynist. Gandhi wrote in Harijan, for example, that women “must develop courage enough to die rather than yield to the brute in man.” Gandhi claimed, if women are fearless, “However beastly the man, he will bow in shame before the flame of her dazzling purity.”

Gandhi opposed contraception (he had a famous debate with Margaret Sanger [6] on the subject). His “idealization” of women as being superior at self-sacrifice, a quality he saw as being required of satyagrahis, is another form of stereotyping (See also Starhawk's trenchant feminist critique of Gandhian self-sacrifice [7] in this issue).

Gandhi often utilized racist arguments to advance the cause of Indians in South Africa. For example, addressing a public meeting in Bombay on September 26, 1896, following his return from South Africa, Gandhi said, “Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir [8], whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.” (Collected Works, Volume II, page 74). The word kaffir (or keffir) is a derogatory term used in South Africa for native Africans. Gandhi never, as far as I’ve read, publicly opposed the racist oppression of black Africans in South Africa.

Pacifism?

Gandhi was, at best, an inconsistent pacifist, in the sense of opposing all wars, a fact pointed out by pacifists such as Bart de Ligt in the 1930s. Gandhi supported the British war effort in several wars, including the Boer War, the Zulu Rebellion (though he later came to believe the British were wrong in that struggle), and World War I. His role was mainly to organize and participate in ambulance corps, but his personal participation earned him the British Empire’s War Medal. Even after he proclaimed “war is wrong, is an unmitigated evil,” he defended his participation based on his perceived “duty as a citizen of the British Empire.” He acknowledged that he was “guilty of the crime of war,” and eventually repudiated the Empire, but didn’t repudiate his actions. (See Gandhi on War and Peace, by Rashmi-Sudha Puri).

While Gandhi undeniably campaigned vigorously against untouchability, Dalit leaders such as Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar opposed the use of Gandhi’s term for “untouchables” (“harijan,” or “children of god”) as condescending, and claimed Gandhi never fully renounced a caste-based worldview.

Riaz Haq said...

Two widows have been bludgeoned to death by a man in the northern Indian state of Haryana, according to a BBC report:

Police arrested a 23-year-old man, the nephew of one of the women. He was on parole, having served a sentence for rape.

Eyewitnesses told police he killed his aunt and another woman in full view of other villagers, after he accused them of being in a lesbian relationship.

Haryana is a deeply conservative and patriarchal region.

Correspondents say that so-called "honour killings" are relatively common in the area.

There have been numerous cases in rural Haryana where women - and men - defying age-old notions of tradition and family honour have been ostracised, murdered or even publicly lynched, correspondents say.

The latest killings happened late on Sunday at Ranila village.

The accused reportedly began beating one of the women, identified as 35-year-old Suman, with a wooden club after accusing her of having an "unnatural affair" with his aunt Shakuntala, eyewitnesses told the police.

A few minutes later, he dragged his aunt onto the village street and beat her to death in front of local villagers who were too scared to intervene, local journalists say.

The two bled to death as the villagers watched.

"[He] threatened other villagers not to help the widows or call for medical help," a police official said.

Police said he later told them that the women were of "loose character" and that they "deserved their fate".

He said he had killed the women to protect his "family's honour".


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13125674

Riaz Haq said...

Indian woman gang raped and set alight in Uttar Pradeash, according to the BBC:

A woman has been gang raped and burnt alive in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police say, the latest in a series of brutal but unrelated attacks on women there.

The woman's family says five men gang-raped her and then set her alight in her own home in Etah district.

In the past week there have been three violent attacks on women in the state.

Correspondents say Uttar Pradesh is one of India's most lawless states where women are accorded a very low status.

On Friday a 14-year-old girl was stabbed in the eye as she fought off two men who attempted to rape her.

The teenager was attacked in Gadwa Buzurg village in the Kannauj district of the northern state. She lost one eye and the other was also seriously damaged.

Police say the attackers were from her own village. Only one has been arrested so far and police said they were looking for the second man.

Two policemen in the area, who initially refused to lodge the parents' complaint, have been suspended.

Last week, a girl's body was found hanging from a tree on police premises in the Nighasan area of Lakhimpur district.

The girl's parents alleged that she was raped and murdered and that the police had offered them a bribe to keep quiet.

In the latest incident the woman, who was in her thirties, was sitting outside her home when five men dragged her inside the house and gang-raped her, according to her family.

Her family say the attackers sprinkled kerosene on her and set her on fire because the woman had recognised them and they were afraid of being caught.

The woman managed to give a statement to police but died shortly afterwards.

Police say they are are still looking for the attackers.

Earlier this year, the head of the National Commission for Women, Girija Vyas, said Uttar Pradesh was at the top of the list when it came to violent crimes against women.

State authorities have been criticised in recent years after several attacks on women and girls were reported.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13835838

Riaz Haq said...

All the pretensions of western style institutions make little sense to most inhabitants of India and Pakistan and other former colonies.

The colonial legacy of parliamentary democracy and British style rule of law are alien concepts in South Asia and never touch the lives of over 90% of the population.

With few exceptions, the disputes and conflicts are resolved using traditional rules set and adjudicated by local village councils (panchayats and jirgas) which are at odds with the laws passed by the national and provincial legislatures and implemented by the governments' justice system.

Anonymous said...

Police in India's West Bengal state have arrested 13 men in connection with a gang rape of a woman, allegedly on orders of village elders who objected to her relationship with a man.

The 20-year-old woman has been admitted to a hospital in a critical condition.

Unofficial courts in India's villages often sanction killings of couples deemed to have violated local codes.

Scrutiny of sexual violence in India has grown since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus.


Village 'justice'

July 2012: Asara village in Uttar Pradesh state bans love marriages and bars women under 40 from shopping alone, using mobile phones outside, and orders them to cover their heads when outdoors
May 2011: Eight people arrested in Uttar Pradesh for stoning to death a young couple who had a love affair
September 2010: A Dalit (formerly "untouchable") woman in Madhya Pradesh is ordered to pay 15,000 rupees ($330) compensation to the high-caste owners of a dog for feeding their pet. The owners say the dog became "untouchable"
August 2010: Village elders in West Bengal order a woman to walk naked in front of large crowds for having "an illicit love affair with a man from a different community"
June 2009: A Muslim woman and her Hindu husband kill themselves after the local village council orders them to annul their marriage or face death

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-25855325

Riaz Haq said...

Woman burnt alive by brothers in #India honour killing: police. #caste #honorkilling http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-06/woman-burnt-alive-in-india-honour-killing-police-say/7225040 … via @ABCNews

A woman has been burnt to death by her brothers for marrying a man belonging to a different caste, police said, in the latest incident of a so-called honour killing in India.

Rama Kunwar, 30, had eloped with her lover eight years ago and returned to her village in western Rajasthan state on Friday, hoping her family had forgiven her for marrying against their wishes.

But her still enraged brothers barged in as she was visiting her in-laws' house and dragged her outside before setting her on fire as other villagers watched.

"She thought that her parents would now accept her but as soon as her brothers came to know that she was in the village, they rushed to that house and dragged her out," Brijran Singh, a senior administrative officer of Dungarpur district, said.

"She cried for help but no one came to rescue her. They also conducted the funeral on the same night to destroy evidence."

Ms Kunwar's mother-in-law alerted police, who reached the spot and doused the funeral pyre in order to collect evidence.

One of Ms Kunwar's brothers and six other men have been arrested.

Authorities are still searching for an unspecified number of suspects, Mr Singh added.

Honour killings — where couples are targeted because their families or communities disapprove of their relationships — have been carried out for centuries in India, especially in rural areas.

They are carried out by close relatives or village elders to protect what is seen as the family's reputation and pride in a hereditary-based caste system.

India's Supreme Court in 2011 ruled those involved in honour killings should face the death penalty.

Riaz Haq said...

Five young Indians die in suspected 'honour' killings

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/32134787/five-young-indians-die-in-suspected-honour-killings/#page1


New Delhi (AFP) - Five young people in northern India are believed to have been murdered by their families or partner's relatives in suspected honour killings, in three separate incidents this week, police said Saturday.

Police arrested the father and brother of a 19-year-old Hindu woman Friday on suspicion of murdering her and her 23-year-old lover, both from the lowest Dalit caste.

The relatives allegedly strangled the couple after catching them having sex at their home in Shamli district in Uttar Pradesh state, police said.

"We have arrested the father and brother of the girl. They told us they killed them because she had brought disrepute to the family," Bhushan Verma, investigating officer in Shamli, told AFP.

"We are investigating to see if there were more relatives involved. Both were strangled to death."

It came after another Hindu couple in their 20s were Thursday found dead in nearby Saharanpur district, also in Uttar Pradesh, after their families allegedly objected to their relationship.

Police have not ruled out suicide after the couple were found hanging inside the man's house.

"It could be honour killing or suicide. We are waiting for the post mortem reports to confirm the cause of death," Pradeep Kumar Yadav, police chief of Saharanpur, told AFP.

Yadav said the couple were in a three year relationship and wanted to marry but faced resistance from both families.

Both of the deceased couples were biologically unrelated to one another.

However, in each case, the couples belonged to the same "gotra" -- or kinship group -- something considered incestuous by many Hindus despite the lack of biological links, and which can be a cause for such killings.

In a third case, police on Thursday found the body of a 16-year-old Muslim boy buried near an edible oil factory in neighbouring Muzaffarnagar district, after he earlier went missing from his home.

Police said the teenager was in a relationship with the niece of the factory's Hindu owner, adding her relatives strangled him to protect the "honour of the family".

"We have arrested the girl's brother, uncle and cousin for the murder," Deepak Kumar, police chief of Muzaffarnagar district, told AFP.

Marriages outside one's caste or religion still attract censure across India.

Honour killings -? which often see couples targeted because their families or communities disapprove of their relationship -? have been carried out for centuries in the country, especially in rural areas.

They are typically enacted by close relatives or village elders to protect what is seen as the family's reputation in a hereditary caste system.

United Nations statistics suggest 1,000 out of the 5,000 such murders that occur worldwide every year are in India.

India's Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that those found guilty of the killings should face the death penalty.

Riaz Haq said...

Was Gandhi a misogynist? The answer is yes.

Gandhi believed Indian women who were raped lost their value as human beings. He argued that fathers could be justified in killing daughters who had been sexually assaulted for the sake of family and community honour. He moderated his views towards the end of his life. But the damage was done, and the legacy lingers in every present-day Indian press report of a rape victim who commits suicide out of "shame". Gandhi also waged a war against contraceptives, labelling Indian women who used them as whores.

Gandhi cemented, for another generation, the attitude that women were simply creatures that could bring either pride or shame to the men who owned them. Again, the legacy lingers. India today, according to the World Economic Forum, finds itself towards the very bottom of the gender equality index. Indian social campaigners battle heroically against such patriarchy. They battle dowry deaths. They battle the honour killings of teenage lovers. They battle Aids. They battle female foeticide and the abandonment of new-born girls.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/27/mohandas-gandhi-women-india

Riaz Haq said...

BBC News - #India honor killing: 'My father ordered my (Dalit) husband's murder'. #caste #honorkilling #SouthIndia #Telangana

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45570981#

On 14 September, Pranay Perumalla was murdered in front of his wife, Amrutha, in an alleged honour killing. BBC Telugu's Deepthi Bathini spoke to Amrutha, whose father has been arrested for plotting the attack.

Amrutha and Pranay were high school sweethearts in Miriyalaguda, a small town in the southern Indian state of Telangana. They first met at high school.

"We always liked each other. We used to talk a lot on the phone and then we fell in love," she says with a wan smile.

Amrutha, 21, belongs to a wealthy, upper-caste family, while Pranay, who was 24, was a Dalit (formerly untouchable). In April 2016, they married despite her parents' objections. Now five months pregnant, she finds herself saying the unimaginable.

"My father killed my husband because he did not belong to the same caste as me."

India woman fights family over 'low caste' husband's murder
There is no official data but according to one study, hundreds of people are killed each year in India in so-called honour killings - for falling in love or marrying against their families' wishes. Many families still prefer arranged marriages within their own caste and religion.

Police have arrested Amrutha's father, Maruti Rao, and six others, including Mr Rao's brother and three alleged contract killers, in connection with the murder. District superintendent AV Ranganath told reporters that Mr Rao had allegedly conspired with his brother and two other men to kill Pranay - and those men had helped him hire the contract killers for a sum of 10 million rupees ($138,000; £104,000).

He added that the attack outside the hospital was the fourth attempt on Pranay's life.

Mr Ranganath also said that Mr Rao had admitted to the charges and had said he had done this because Pranay was a Dalit and his family was not wealthy.

But Mr Rao and the other accused have made no independent statement about the charges. The BBC contacted Mr Rao's lawyer who said he had no comment. The BBC also visited Mr Rao's house but found it empty and no other members of the family have provided a response.

Image caption
Dalit groups have come out in support of Amrutha
On the day of the murder, Amrutha woke up late. Her back was aching, so she went to the hospital for a check-up. Pranay and her mother-in-law accompanied her.

When they left the hospital, she recalls asking Pranay, who was a few steps behind her, a question. When he didn't answer, she turned around and saw him lying on the ground.

CCTV footage from the hospital, which has been broadcast on national news channels, shows a man following the family as they walked out of the gate. He first hacked at Pranay's upper body with what appears to be an axe. When Pranay fell, he struck him again.

Amrutha says her mother-in-law pushed the man away, while she ran inside the hospital to get help.

"When I called my father to confront him, he said, 'so what should I do? Take him to a hospital?'" she says.

India 'honour killings': Paying the price for falling in love
Community torn apart by 'honour killings'
Growing up, Amrutha says, her mother discouraged her from even making friends with children from other castes. So her parents were against her relationship with Pranay from the moment they found out about it. But that didn't stop Amrutha.

"We had to run away to see each other. But I did not care about his caste or how much money his family had. What was important was that we loved each other."

Even after they married, Amrutha says, her parents forced her to return home and locked her up in a room. Eventually, she managed to escape. And the couple moved in with Pranay's parents, who had accepted their marriage.

Riaz Haq said...

BBC News - The couples on the run for love in #India. Upper #caste Brahmin Shilpaba had to flee from her village to marry Ravindra, a #Dalit. But the threat of violence has continued to hang over them. #India #crime stats show 77 honor killings in 2016. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47823588

"Those who marry inter-caste are seen as aliens. The perception is that they are terrorists who revolt in society."

Ravindra and Shilpaba were born and brought up in two villages separated by more than 100km (62 miles) in the western state of Gujarat.

They met on Facebook and would spend hours taking digs at each other.

But all that friendly banter had a deep impact on Shilpaba.

"I was like any other village girl limited to home and college, but he broadened my horizon, made me realise that my life has more meaning," she says.

Social media has opened a space that did not exist a few decades ago. Rigid caste and religious divides meant that the possibility of meeting, interacting and striking friendships in public places was neither possible nor encouraged.

The caste system is hereditary, and the practice of marrying within the caste ensures that the hierarchy is perpetuated. Caste divisions have deep roots in history and Dalit men who have married women from upper castes have been killed.

Marriages across caste or religion in India are uncommon. According to the India Human Development Survey, only about 5% of Indian marriages are inter-caste.

The onus of upholding tradition, culture and "purity" falls on the woman and if she marries outside traditional boundaries, she is seen as besmirching the honour of the community and her family.

The anger and backlash can lead to violent attacks and killings.

Shilpaba had to flee from her village to marry Ravindra. But the threat of violence has continued to hang over them: they have moved between houses and cities a dozen times in the past three years. Ravindra is a trained engineer but had to leave his job and has had to do daily-wage labour wherever they have lived to make ends meet.

Shilpaba says the stress became unbearable. They started blaming each other for their situation and she even contemplated taking her own life.

"Ravindra convinced me out of it, as that was no solution," she says. "Now we are both studying law with a vision to take up human rights cases and make our parents proud through our work.

"Maybe then they will see that we didn't take this decision to just have fun and they will accept us."

'Shocking' level of prejudice
The latest data available from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that 77 murder cases in 2016 were reported with "honour killing" as the motive.

Such violence is highly under-reported and these numbers do not accurately reflect social attitudes that may be growing more conservative.

A 2016 survey, Social Attitudes Research for India (Sari), conducted across Delhi, Mumbai, and the states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan found the majority of respondents opposed to inter-caste and inter-religious marriages.

In fact they were in favour of a law banning such marriages.

"It is quite shocking that despite rising levels of literacy and education, prejudicial beliefs do not reduce. In fact, they are worryingly high," says Professor Amit Thorat of Jawaharlal Nehru University, who worked on the Sari survey.

"Religious and traditional values around hierarchies, around the notion of purity and pollution seem to be more sacrosanct and valuable than human rights, the right to live or the right to marry by choice."

Riaz Haq said...

Man in #Odisha, #India decapitates wife over infidelity suspicions, then walks miles with her severed head. Nakaphodi Majhi suspected his wife Sachala Majhi of infidelity and murdered her by slitting her throat with a sharp #dagger. https://news.yahoo.com/man-india-decapitates-wife-over-221706535.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr via @YahooNews

A man allegedly decapitated his wife and walked over seven miles to the police station with her severed head in Odisha, India.

Nakaphodi Majhi, 55, reportedly suspected his wife Sachala Majhi of infidelity and murdered her by slitting her throat with a katuri, a sharp dagger, during a heated argument at around 3:30 a.m. on July 15 in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district.

Majhi then reportedly beheaded Sachala before walking seven miles toward the nearest police station with her severed head.

Locals of the Chandrasekharpur village were horrified as Majhi was captured en route to the Gondia police station. Witnesses reportedly apprehended him at Jankira village and informed the police.

Joranda Police arrested Majhi and registered a case against him. Police also recovered the blood-stained weapon Majhi had used in the crime.

The investigation is currently ongoing.

Majhi and the deceased woman were married for 25 years. They have two sons, according to the police.