The Hindu : New Delhi News : Woman, paramour done to death in Haryana village

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 11, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

New Delhi

New Delhi

Woman, paramour done to death in Haryana village

Chandigarh: In the second honour killing in Haryana in less than a year, a housewife and her paramour were done to death in Karnal’s Ballah village allegedly by the family of the woman whose mother justified the killing saying “she deserved it”.

As mortal remains of lovers Sunita (23) and Jasbir (26), both belonging to the Jat community, were consigned to flames a day after they were killed on Thursday night, the entire village appears to have given its stamp of approval to their killing.

Village Sarpanch Ranbir Mann told reporters that a panchayat meeting had been convened on Monday where a firm message will be sent out so that such “immoral practices” do not take place in future.

The girl’s family had kept the bodies of the lovers outside their house apparently as a lesson for others so that nobody else committed the “immoral act”.

Sunita had married Manjit of Phurlak village reportedly against her wishes three years back. However, she and Jasbir continued to meet each other and when her husband came to know about this, he allegedly divorced Sunita.

Police said Sunita and Jasbir had for the past six months stayed at the residence of the latter’s sister Neelam at Machhroli village near Panipat.

A group of 30 people reached Neelam’s residence and took the couple out in separate vehicles and later the girl’s family had informed the police that their bodies had been found.

“Even though the role of the girl’s family in the murder is under scanner, we are in the process of recording statements of some people, including Neelam, which will throw further light in this case,” Karnal’s Senior Superintendent of Police, A S Chawla said.

He stated that a case of murder and attempt to destroy evidence had been registered against 29 people and some of them had been rounded up for questioning.

Sunita’s parents disowned their daughter and stayed away from cremation after the post-mortem of the couple was conducted in Karnal on Saturday.

“We killed our daughter. She deserved it”, Sunita’s mother told reporters.

The last rites of Sunita, who was said to be pregnant, were performed by some of her relatives while parents of Jasbir were present at the time of his cremation at the village. The lovers were cremated at separate places in order to avoid any untoward incident, police sources said.

This is not the first time Haryana has witnessed honour killing. In July last, Manoj and Babli of Kaithal were thrown into a canal as family members objected to their marriage on the ground of their belonging to the same gotra.

Over two years ago, Soumiya and Rampal having the same gotra were declared brother and sister by a village panchayat in Jhajjar district after they got married. -- PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi