‘Honour killings’ increase 800%

Calls grow in India for law to protect the vulnerable

MUMBAI // The number of people murdered in India for “dishonouring” their families rose by 800 per cent last year.

Figures in parliament revealed 251 such killings, compared with 28 in 2014. The victims were almost all women.

Now calls are increasing for a special law for the murders, which activists say have a strong link to the caste system and are often committed or hidden by the victim’s relatives.

“If a law is introduced, a law is at least the first step in accepting that honour killings exist,” said Vandana Shah, a Mumbai lawyer.

“A law would mean that people know it is legally wrong and you have recourse to some kind of justice.”

But Ms Shah said legislators faced a tough battle in introducing the law, as many communities still accepted the killings as justifiable.

“Everyone in the village will know about an honour killing but nobody will come out and say that they are witness to the killing,” she said.

Ranjana Kumari, director of New Delhi’s Centre of Social Research, said: “Slowly, slowly it has become an issue.

“They have started recording it and the figures started coming from all over the country and you see the data has really swelled.” Ms Kumari said, however, that despite many campaigns a law has been delayed because politicians were reluctant to act when so many of their voters upheld the caste system.

“This is caste and patriarchy working together,” she said. “We should not even call them ‘ honour killings’ because then you’re giving them some kind of justification.

“They are murders.”

MUMBAI // Calls are mounting for a law to be introduced against so- called honour killings in India as new data showed they surged 800 per cent in a year.

Figures quoted in the Indian parliament revealed that police registered 251 crimes as honour killings last year, compared to 28 in 2014 – the first year in which the government began recording honour killings as distinct from murder. Before January 2014, they were not collated separately. The victims of such crimes have been mostly women and the perpetrators were often family members. Activists point to a strong link with India’s caste system, which forbids intermarriage between people from different castes or religions.

“Honour killings are basically to do with the breach of these caste norms. The people who breach those norms become the target of all kinds of social ostracisation, and sometimes even killing takes place,” said Ranjana Kumari, director of the centre of social research, an NGO in New Delhi.

She has been lobbying for a specific legislation to outlaw honour killings and subject the perpetrators to the same penalties as murder – capital punishment or life imprisonment.

Ms Kumari was spurred to act over the killing of newly- weds Manoj and Babli Banwala in Haryana in 2007 by Babli’s relatives, who believed their marriage went against clan tradition.

Manoj’s grandfather strangled her, while her brother forced Babli to drink pesticide.

Such cases, if they are reported, are now treated as murder. The vast majority of these cases are usually not reported.

Despite many calls for a new law, the process to pass legislation has been delayed because traditional communities are a vital source of support for politicians, according to Ms Kumari.

“I’m sure we will have a law eventually where people at least can go for some recourse,” she said. “Slowly it has become an issue. They [the authorities] have started recording it, the figures started coming from all over the country and you see the data has really swelled.” Besides being unrecorded, some suspicious deaths have been passed off as suicides or accidents.

For example, in July in Bhopal, a couple was accused of murdering their daughter, Arti, 17, because she was in a relationship that they objected to. They forced her to write a suicide note before pouring kerosene over her and setting her alight.

Arti’s death was treated as suicide until police got hold of a video which showed her parents standing by doing nothing as she ran out of the house, engulfed in flames. Many communities in India still accept killing in what is perceived as defence of the family name as justifiable.

“A new law is at least the first step in accepting that honour killings exist,” said Vandana Shah, a lawyer in Mumbai.

“Before the law on dowry was introduced about 10 years ago, people pretended that dowry didn’t exist, but everybody knew it did. Everyone in the village will know about an honour killing but nobody will come out and say that they are witness to the killing. A law would mean that people know it is legally wrong and you have recourse to some kind of justice.”

Honour killings happen especially frequently in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in north India. The highest number of cases were in Uttar Pradesh, with 131 such murders recorded last year.

“Vote bank issues”, or the lack of political support, is an obstacle to passing a legislative bill against honour killings, according to A Kathir, executive director of Evidence, an NGO in Tamil Nadu, south India, which campaigns for human rights. In many instances in Tamil Nadu, the bodies were burnt after the killings, and the families reported the deaths as suicide, said Mr Kathir. “Because the kill- ings are by family members, it is hard to get witnesses,” he said.

In her campaign for change, Ms Kumari targets the forces that are propagating the murders.

She said she had staged protests at committee meetings in rural areas, where rich farmers and elders control the local population and decide the punishment of inter-caste marriages. In some cases, they decreed that murder was the solution to the perceived problem. The committees were always made up entirely of men.

“The supreme court of India has said that these panchayats, or village councils, are extraconstitutional and unelected and have no right to issue these decisions, so governments have been asked to stop the functioning of these kinds of panchayats,” said Ms Kumari.

“This is caste and patriarchy working together. We should not even call them honour killings because then you’re giving them some kind of justification. They are murders.”

‘ A new law is at least the first step in accepting that honour killings exist Vandana Shah A lawyer in Mumbai