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Men and women in northern India who dare to marry outside their caste face killing. (Reuters) |
BALLA, India — Five armed men burst into the small room and courtyard at dawn, just as 21-year-old, 22-week pregnant Sunita was drying her face on a towel.
They punched and kicked her stomach as she called out for her sleeping partner, "Jassa", 22-year-old Jasbir Singh. When he woke, both were dragged into waiting cars, driven away and strangled.
Later, their bodies, half-stripped, were laid out on the dirt outside Sunita's father's house for all to see, a sign that the family's "honor" had been restored by her cold-blooded murder.
"We are not ashamed of it, absolutely not," Sunita's cousin told Reuters on Friday, May 16 in Balla in northern state of Haryana.
"We have the honor of doing the village proud."
"We would not have had a face to show if we had not done this. It was the act of 'real men".'"
Sunita's father Om Prakash has confessed to murdering his pregnant daughter and her boyfriend, police told Reuters. An uncle and two cousins were among four others arrested.
Residents believe the father confessed merely to underline that he supported his daughter's killing, to satisfy honor and protect the real culprits among his family or village.
The state of Haryana is one of India's most conservative when it comes to caste, marriage and the role of women.
Deeply patriarchal, caste purity is paramount and marriages are arranged to sustain the status quo.
Men and women who dare to marry outside their caste face killing and the practice is widespread and widely supported in Haryana.
Anyone who transgresses social codes, by marrying across caste boundaries or within the same village, is liable to meet the same fate as Sunita and Jasbir.
Traditions
Many "honor killings" are never reported due to societal traditions.
"From society's point of view, this is a very good thing," said 62-year-old farmer Balwan Arya, sitting smoking a hookah in the shade of a tree in a square with other elders from the village council or panchayat.
"We have removed the blot."
Professor Javeed Alam, chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, said people in the state are treated as siblings according to the societal traditions.
"So this is treated as incest," he said.
Without any law to prohibit this kind of marriage, "the only way you can punish it is by taking the law into your own hands.
"People believe people who commit incest should be killed," he said, blaming politicians for failing to renounce the practice.
"If they did, they would not win elections," he said.
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