‘Most honour killings due to girls’ kin’

NEW DELHI - A majority of honour killings are perpetrated by the kin of girls who marry their lovers and more couples are killed for inter-caste marriage than for tying the knot in the same gotra, the Rajya Sabha was informed Monday.

Quoting a study, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath said violence and threats against couples have been reported both from rural and urban areas and from almost all sections of the society.

The study was commissioned by the National Commission for Women (NCW) and carried out by NGO Shakti Vahini in Haryana, Punjab and Western Uttar Pradesh.

According to Tirath, Shakti Vahini studied 560 cases where couples had been threatened by relatives and of these 121 people have been killed.

“The study reveals that in 88.93 percent of the total 560 cases surveyed, the perpetrators of the crime were from the girl’s family,” she said.

The study found that honour killings have been reported most from those areas where the khap panchayats are active.

The study found that honour killings are linked more to inter-caste marriages as compared to alliances within the same gotra.

The families’ reaction to the inter-caste marriages are much stronger and violent when the girl marries a Dalit or a lower caste boy, than in case she marries within her own caste, the report said.