The Hindu : Front Page : Father held for `honour killing'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 20, 2005

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Father held for `honour killing'

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: In what is described by the Delhi police as a case of "honour killing", the Pradhan of a vegetable market at Tehkhand in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh allegedly hired contract killers to get his daughter murdered as he considered her to be of "immoral character" bringing a "bad name" to the family. The young woman was murdered in a rented accommodation at Sangam Vihar in South Delhi on August 6. Her father and four of his alleged accomplices have been arrested.

On August 8, the owner of the house in Sangam Vihar rang up the police saying a foul smell was emanating from a room he had rented out to a man three days earlier. The room was locked from outside.

The police broke open the door and found the highly decomposed body of a woman wrapped in a blanket. Preliminary investigation revealed that the victim had been strangled with a "chunni". The police found near the body a small piece of paper bearing a telephone number, which turned out to be that of Masihi Kanya Vidyalaya in Bulandshahr.

A police team was sent to Bulandshahr to probe the case. The police officers interrogated the school teachers and showed the photograph of the deceased to the students. One of them, Sonu, identified it as that of his mother, Sunita. He was brought to Delhi and shown the body. According to the police, Sunita's relatives claimed that she was of "immoral character" and had been living separately from her husband at Tehkhand. Her father, Jai Singh, who is the Pradhan of the vegetable market at Tehkhand, was apparently "ashamed" of her activities. To make her see "reason'', he had asked her close friend, Guddu, a resident of Modhganj Hardoi, to talk to her. But she apparently did not pay heed to him.

Guddu purportedly told the police that he and Jai Singh allegedly conspired to eliminate her. At Jai Singh's instance, Guddu allegedly hired Matru, Sunil and Ranu for the job, against a sum of Rs. 30,000.

Guddu and Ranu then rented the Sangam Vihar flat on August 5. The next day, Matru and Ranu stayed in the room and cooked food. The same day, Guddu and Sunil allegedly brought Sunita to the room on some pretext, made her consume liquor and strangled her while she was in an inebriated state. They then allegedly wrapped the body in a blanket and put it in the loft of the room. In the early hours of August 7 the four escaped from the scene after locking the door from outside. The police have arrested all the five accused.

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