17-yr-old killed for ‘honour’ in Sonepat

A 17-year-old boy was kidnapped from Delhi’s Bawana, thrashed and strangled to death at a village in Haryana’s Sonepat by four relatives of a minor girl he was ‘courting’ for six months. The boy’s body was later thrown in a canal and his car burnt in an agricultural field in Sonepat in a bid to destroy evidence.

Police said the four men made a mobile video in which they are allegedly seen forcing the boy to confess that he was assaulted by four unidentified men. The four killed the boy because they did not like his ‘closeness with their sister’ and cause both the families were of the same caste and belonged to the same village in Bawana.

Police have arrested one of the girl’s cousins and said that this was a case of ‘honour killing’.

The murdered boy and the 16-year-old girl had reportedly met around seven hours before the teenager was kidnapped on Wednesday. Police said that initially the girl’s family members suspected that the duo had eloped. “At around 3am on Wednesday, the girl’s family, including her cousins, saw her stepping out of the boy’s car outside her house. They then abducted the boy and later murdered him,” said a police officer. On Friday, the police arrested a 25-year-old cousin, identified as Rakesh, of the girl and claimed to have solved the case. Rakesh’s interrogation helped police locate the crime scene and recover the teenager’s body from a canal in Sonepat. The other cousins of the girl have been identified as Manish, Lokesh and Nitesh, who are currently absconding.

Ajit Kumar Singla, additional commissioner of police (crime), said that the boy’s family members filed a kidnapping case. They told police that he had left home around 8 pm on Tuesday.

During the probe, the investigating team learnt that one of the cousins of the girl, Rakesh, had a mobile video clip in which the teenager was seen telling Rakesh and the girl’s other cousins that he was attacked by four unknown armed men.

Rakesh was nabbed and during interrogation broke down and confessed to the crime. Rakesh disclosed that his 16-year-old cousin (sister) went missing from their home on Tuesday evening.