Five get death sentence for "honour killing" in India

Mar 30, 2010, 13:19 GMT

New Delhi - An Indian court Tuesday sentenced five people to death for the 2007 'honour killing' of a newlywed couple who defied local kinship traditions.

The court in the northern Indian state of Haryana convicted seven men last week of murdering Manoj, 23, and his bride Babli, 19, of Karoran village in Kaithal district.

One defendant was sentenced to life in prison, while another received a seven-year prison term, public prosecutor Sunil Rana said.

It was the first instance of a court ordering capital punishment for so-called honour killing, a common practice in northern states such as Haryana and Punjab.

The couple had defied local caste and kinship traditions of the rural Jat community, which forbid men and women of the same sub-caste from marrying because they are regarded as siblings.

The bride's family had complained to the caste council after Manoj and Babli wed.

The council pronounced the marriage illegal and ordered the groom's family to be shunned. It also announced that villagers who kept ties with the family would be fined 25,000 rupees (about 550 dollars).

On June 15, 2007, as the couple was trying to leave the area, a group of men led by the woman's brothers and cousins dragged the them out of a bus, took them to a remote location and hacked them to death before dumping the bodies in an irrigation canal.

'Today's judgement is a landmark judgement in an honour killing case. It sends out a broad message to the society and the communities that whatever the caste councils are doing in the country is against the law,' Rana said.

There have been several cases in recent years where young men and women have been ostracized or even killed for marrying against the wishes of the tradition-bound rural Jat communities.

A 21-year-old youth was lynched by a mob in a village in Jind district of Haryana in July 2009, after his marriage to a girl of the same clan was declared illegal by the caste council.

The government is considering an amendment to the Indian Penal Code to define 'honour killing' as a heinous crime with punishment ranging from life imprisonment to the death sentence.