A 19-YEAR-OLD woman and a 22-year-old man died after they were set on fire, allegedly by the woman’s family members in a suspected case of honour killing
in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district, police said on Thursday.
The incident happened on Wednesday after Priyanka’s neighbours saw her and Bhola at her house. They were set on fire by the girl’s family including her father and brothers in a suspected case of honour killing.
Honour killings in India is no less than a pandemic, if in any case the family’s honour is violated and brings upon shame stern illegal actions are taken by the family. society as a collective unit pronounces what is honourable and what is not, and in this context, shame is a social experience. Of such cases, inter-caste marriages and affairs top the reasons.
The inter-caste marriages have been gradually gaining acceptance due to increasing education, employment, middle-class economic background, and urbanisation. According to a survey in 2014, about 5% of marriages are inter-caste in India. But cases like such don’t seem to drop in uneducated and orthodox.
Couples in India are on the run, they fear the very own people who brought them up. In another case Rukmini, who was 2 months pregnant, succumbed to her injuries. The brutal killing was done by her father an uncles. The family even denied to claim her body.
Living in a metropolitan we might turn a blind a eye to this problem, but honour killing exists in India and does not seem a big deal to people in such areas. Society places this ‘honour’ in the women from their community. They are expected to make decisions considering the likes and dislikes of their family, if not they might end up dead.
The police has little to say in these issues and usually comes in after the incident. Mostly because the problem is so deeply rooted in communities that panchayats and village heads prefer independent authority over such matters. Outside intervention or influence is seen to corrupt minds of their children and thus they resist any form of westernization or education.
