Honor Killing in India shocks many, raises fears

NEW DELHI: The murder of a 17-year-old India girl by her father over an alleged affair has highlighted the fears among women’s rights advocates in the country that honor killings are on the rise.

The girl police said, was strangled to death by her father after he discovered she was having an affair with a young boy from the Ramnagar colony of Sonipat on Friday afternoon.

“This is a worrying situation for all women in the country, who are continuing to struggle to live our lives the way we want,” a 25-year-old women’s rights researcher and activist Rhea Genash told Bikyamasr.com.

“India is facing yet another crisis of women’s issues and if the government and police do not act swiftly, more young girls could be under threat,” she added.

Brijesh Singh, belonging to a Rajput community and employed in a local factory, allegedly killed his daughter when she was asleep in her room.

His wife Nirmla called the police after the incident and the accused courted arrest while confessing to his crime. The family originally hails from Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh and had settled in Sonipat over a decade back.

The victim’s mother revealed that they were angry with their daughter as she had been having an affair with a youth living in the same locality.

“We tried to persuade her to mend her ways but she did not listen to us. We had also withdrawn her from the school recently,” said Nirmla.

Rai police station SHO Sultan Singh admitted that the girl had been withdrawn from school as she used to return late from her classes. But the police refused to buy the theory that she was killed merely for going steady with a neighbourhood boy.

“It’s not a case of honor killing. The father was simply angry with her due to her recalcitrant behaviour. She used to quarrel with her mother often and also fought with her father on Thursday night. He seemed to be angry with her after this incident and strangled her in a fit of rage,” Sultan claimed.

But others disagree, including Genash, who said that this is the typical honor crime in India, where a girl, or woman is accused of having an affair and her family “murders her in order to keep the family’s pride.”

She added that it was “despicable that this type of crime occurs in modern India, where we have seen a lot of progress in women’s empowerment in recent years.”

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