Daily Times

NEW DELHI: Five young people in northern India are believed to have been murdered by their families or partners in suspected honour killings, in three separate incidents this week, the police department said on Saturday.

The police arrested a 19-year-old Hindu woman’s father and brother on Friday over 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 fornicating at their home in Shamli district in Uttar Pradesh state, the police said.

“We have arrested the father and the brother of the girl. They told us they killed them because she had brought disgrace to the family name,” Shamli investigating officer Bhushan Verma said and added, “We are investigating to see if there were more relatives involved because both the victims were strangled to death.”

This incident came after another murder of a Hindu couple in their 20s on Thursday as they were found dead in the nearby Saharanpur district, also in Uttar Pradesh, after their families allegedly objected to their relationship. Police have not ruled out suicide as the couple was 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,” Saharanpur Police Chief Pradeep Kumar Yadav said. He 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 which can be a cause for such killings.

In a third case, authorities on Thursday found the body of a 16-year-old Muslim boy buried near an oil factory in neighbouring Muzaffarnagar district, after he earlier went missing from his home. The police said that the teenager was in a relationship with the niece of the factory’s Hindu owner, adding that her relatives strangled him to protect the ‘honour’ of their family. “We have arrested the girl’s brother, uncle and cousin for the murder,” Muzaffarnagar Police Chief Deepak Kumar said.

Marriages outside one’s caste or religion still attract disapproval 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 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 annually, are in India. India’s Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that those found guilty of the killings should face the death penalty.