The Hindu : Victims of 'honour killings' recall horror

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 13, 2004

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Victims of 'honour killings' recall horror

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 12. On November 25 last year, 22-year-old Jasbeer — the only earning member of his family — was brutally murdered after his hands were chopped off and legs cut with swords and other sharp-edged weapons by a group of four angry Rajputs in broad daylight in a local market of Hoshiarpur district of Punjab. His fault — hailing from the Jat community, Jasbeer had dared to marry his neighbour Geeta, a Rajput girl, some two months ago.

"The marriage was not only opposed by our parents, but by the Rajput community as a whole who were angry that I had married someone who they termed was from an inferior community. They had openly announced a cash award of Rs. 50,000 to anyone who would chop Jasbeer's hand,'' said Geeta, who is yet to recover from the shock of her life. An eyewitness to the cruel murder along with her mother-in-law, Kashmiri Kaur, 65, Geeta was in Delhi to narrate the tale of horror at a daylong Convention Against Honour Killings/ Violence organised by the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA).

"As I am one of the eye-witnesses, I am receiving threatening calls from the fourth killer who is absconding. The other three have been arrested,'' she said. Though provided two armed policemen by Punjab Police, Geeta said: "My life is in danger. The members of my Rajput community can kill me anytime.''

Geeta is not the only victim of `honour killings' in the country today. About half a dozen similar victims were present at the daylong convention with each one having their own heart-rending stories to narrate. "It is a shame on all of us,'' said Brinda Karat, the AIDWA general secretary.

"A large number of caste fatwas are being issued every year by the dominant castes in the country against inter-caste marriages. The most unfortunate part is that it is increasing every year,'' she claimed. Among the worst-affected areas are Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. In Muzaffarnagar district, 13 `honour killings' were reported in the first nine months of 2003, while in 2002 there were 10 such killings and 35 couples were declared missing by the police. "About 10 per cent of murders in Haryana and Punjab are honour killings,'' Ms. Karat claimed.

"This violence is committed in the name of saving the honour of the caste / community / family and all this enjoys the patronage of the political leadership,'' she observed. The type of violence include public lynching of couples, murder of either the girl or boy or both, murder made to appear as suicide as for example forcing the individual to drink poison, sexual assault on women members of the accused family belonging to the lower caste as "revenge'', public beating, public humiliation, stripping, blackening of face, shaving of head, forcing couple and their families to drink urine or eat excreta, forced incarceration of individuals, punishment to the families of individuals concerned through social boycott, being driven out of the village and levying of huge fines.

Concluding that the present legal system discouraged inter-caste and inter-community marriages, the Convention questioned the role of the district administration and the police on such occasions when they usually come out in support of the perpetrators of crime because of a shared view of what constitutes the honour of the community.

Calling upon all democratic organisations to intervene in such cases to prevent the victimisation of the couple and to pressurise Governments to take the necessary policy decisions on the issue, the Convention demanded a commitment by political parties to uphold the right of own choice in marriage, a ban on all decisions of caste panchayats and accountability of all village panchayats to report such incidents.

It demanded amendments in the panchayat laws in the affected States so that any elected panchayat official associated with such decisions may be removed from his / her position.

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