ANOTHER HONOUR CRIME IN HARYANA

Dwaipayan Ghosh | TNN



New Delhi: It’s yet another instance of what’s becoming a horrifyingly story. Three years after a young couple fled their village in Haryana from families opposed to the ‘‘same-gotra’’ union, the girl’s family allegedly killed the 22-year-old man and locked up their daughter to be repeatedly raped by her relatives and their friends. She would have been killed too, say cops, but the gritty 21-yearold escaped from her captors and approached the police, turning in her father and other family members.
The gory turn of events began on Diwali day in Narela, outer Delhi, where the couple was tricked into joining a friend for celebrations. Police has arrested four people — the girl’s father Daya Singh (50), her nephew Sandeep and his friends Pawan and Inderjeet — for the alleged ‘‘honour killing’’ of her husband. They are also looking into claims by the girl that she was confined and raped by Sandeep and his acquaintances from October 17 to 22 when she managed to flee.
DCP (outer) Atul Katiyar said the victim Shruti (name changed) approached cops on October 26 with the help of a friend. Based on her account, police recovered the body of her husband, Virender Singh, from a canal in Sonepat district. A Maruti van owned by Sandeep which was allegedly used to dump the body has also been seized.
Police said Shruti was 18 and a student of Class 10 when she fell in love with Singh, two years her senior at school. ‘‘Their relationship was resented by her family and the villagers of Mahara in Sonepat as both belonged to the same gotra. Unable to convince their families, they fled from the village in October 2006,’’ said Om Prakash, assistant commissioner of police for operations, Outer Delhi. Both were majors — Shruti was 18, while Virender was 19.

Gory Tragedy


Couple flee Sonepat in 2006 as villagers oppose same-gotra relationship
Virender jailed for abduction, his lover forcibly married off
Couple get married in 2008 after girl runs away from ‘abusive’ husband
On Oct 17, 2009, friend invites couple for Diwali celebrations where girl’s family allegedly locks her up, murders Virender



New Delhi: A case of kidnapping was lodged against Virender — who married Shruti despite being from the same gotra — by the Sonepat police and he was arrested and sent to jail. In January 2007, even as Virender was in jail, Shruti was forcibly married to Jaipal, from Teli Khera village near Jind in Haryana. Jaipal began to abuse her when he came to know of her past and Shruti lodged a case with the Jind police. But no action was taken and a desperate Shruti contacted Virender who was out on bail.
The couple decided to reunite and Shruti left Jaipal to set up home with Virender in Samaipur Badli in outer Delhi. On August 8, 2008, they got married in a temple in Chandigarh.




Girl raped by her relatives
‘‘They shifted to Samalkha in Haryana after her father traced them in Samaipur Badli and threatened to kill Virender,’’ said an investigating officer. Meanwhile, angered by his ‘‘wife’s boldness’’, Jaipal lodged a kidnapping case against Virender with the Jind police. ‘‘Fearing that they might be arrested again, the couple contacted the district collector’s office in Jind and clarified that they had married of their own free will.’’
That didn’t help, though. The couple were arrested and Virender, who was working
with a food company by then, was sent to jail again.
‘‘The girl refused to go back to her father’s place, fearing she would be killed, and stayed at the local Nari Niketan. All through Virender’s trial, she maintained that she had gone with him of her own accord. The case was dismissed and Virender was freed,’’ said DCP Katiyar.
On October 17, Virender was invited by his friend Inderjeet to spend Diwali at Sandeep’s house in Narela. The couple accepted, unaware that Sandeep would also be present.Around 10.30pm on that day, Shruti’s father, an ex-serviceman currently employed as a security officer, reached the house with his son and nephew and beat up Virender before allegedly strangling him to death.
‘‘Shruti was allegedly raped by Sandeep and Inderjeet in another room. Sandeep carried the body in his van and dumped it in a canal after tying a stone around the neck. The girl was kept confined in a room in Narela and threatened to return to Jind or face death,’’ said Katiyar. Police are now investigating the role of other family members in the incident. ‘‘Her first husband, Jaipal, is under the scanner too. The girl is still under severe trauma and we are providing counselling to her,’’ added the DCP.

NO BRIDES,THAN MARRY THE TEENIES- THE BARTER SYSTEM

Divya A., What is the barter system ?

In Haryana’s sex ratio is 861 females/1000 males, compared to the national average of 933/1000 to overcome the lack of brides family promises a daughter in exchange for a bride for its son. The promised daughter may not be adult but is married off to keep the bargain Some believe Haryana's practice could make daughters more relevant within the family but others believe it means the exploitation of minors. Kumari says, "The police may have been able to stop a couple of such cases but the ground reality could be scary. Many teenage girls must have been passed off as brides to middle-aged men only because their brothers or uncles needed a wife. Such a practice makes them victims of easy exploitation."‘‘Families with large land holdings don’t face much of a problem finding brides for their sons,’’ says Chandigarh social scientist Manjit Singh. ‘‘But small and marginal farmers have no choice but to marry their own daughter or a female relative into the family from where they expect a bride for their son.’’ No one is keeping count but the numbers might be huge in a state where more than 14 lakh people don’t have a house and live in slums, according to a 2006 state government report. Singh says that the barter system was earlier limited to the Bishnois and a few other communities, but it is now being adopted even by Jats.



Original from INDIAN TIMES.
Can't find brides, Haryana barters away little girls
Divya A, TNN 2 August 2009, 01:19am I

A case recently came to light in Jandli Kalan village of Haryana's Fatehabad district. One Nathu Ram was to marry Geeta. His sister was to
marry Geeta's maternal uncle on the same day. But Geeta's father complained to the deputy commissioner of police that his daughter was just 15 years old. He said his wife and her family had conspired to marry her off in order that his brother-in-law get a bride under the 'barter system'. The authorities swooped down on Jandli Kalan village and stopped the wedding, but the family had a contingency plan. They produced Geeta's cousin Savitri as a replacement bride. But she turned out to be a minor as well. Under pressure, Geeta's relatives frantically searched for a bride within the extended family and finally found a 20-year-old.

Fatehabad deputy Commissioner CG Rajnikanthan said that when his team went to stop Savitri's marriage, her family tried to convince him that the girl was adult even though the girl herself admitted she was born in 1993. "It was only after I categorically told them that criminal cases would be registered against them in case they went ahead with their plan without producing evidence that the girl was a major, that they stopped and gave me an undertaking they would not marry off the girl till she's of marriageable age."

The Jandli Kalan case may be extraordinary but it is hardly unusual. The same thing happened almost 100 km away, in the Keharwala village of adjoining Sirsa district, except that the prospective brides were even younger 12 and 14.

Haryana is reduced to this because of its deeply skewed sex ratio. A state government report admits there are just 822 females for every 1000 men in the 0 to 6 years category. The ratio falls even further in the literate population: 618 females to 1000 males. In some villages in the state, notably Malerna and Duleypur, the sex ratio at birth is 370 and 400 females per 1,000 males respectively.

So rural Haryana operates a barter system so that its sons can find brides. But every family does not have a girl of marriageable age to exchange; some marry off minors to keep their end of the bargain.

"Families with large land holdings don't face much of a problem finding brides for their sons," says Chandigarh social scientist Manjit Singh. "But small and marginal farmers have no choice but to marry their own daughter or a female relative into the family from where they expect a bride for their son."

No one is keeping count but the numbers might be huge in a state where more than 14 lakh people don't have a house and live in slums, according to a 2006 state government report.

Singh says that the barter system was earlier limited to the Bishnois and a few other communities, but it is now being adopted even by Jats.

Asha Setia, officer of the state's Integrated Child Development Scheme, says that few cases come to light but "we fear it goes on". She says the state government has recently deployed one child marriage protection officer to each district. His job: to convince village heads such practices are wrong.

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, takes an uncompromising view. "Only in Haryana are women treated as commodities they are bought, sold, killed, discarded and even exchanged. Honour killings, child marriage and female infanticide all are taking place in the name of custom. It shows a totally desensitized political class," she says. Is this the state that was once home to the Arya Samaj movement, Kumari says scathingly.

Unicefs 'State of the Worlds Children-2009' report says that 40% of all child marriages in the world occur in India. Girl's may be married off early in many parts of Africa too, some even before puberty. But there is a difference. The African brides parents are paid in cash, cattle or other valuables and her bride price falls steadily as the girl gets older. In Pakistan, the tribal custom of 'watta satta' has families betroth a son and a daughter together to another family.

INDIAN ROMANCE - THE STORY OF EZAZ AND ILLIYAS DAUGHTER

A bridegroom and his family were beaten up for raising their dowry demand from the bride’s father a day after the wedding day. As soon as they came to know about the unreasonable demand, residents of Badarpur village, about 20 km away from Nuh in Haryana, on Saturday night forced the groom to divorce his wife even before the ‘bidaai’ as he did not ‘‘deserve her’’.




Sources said Ezaz Khan of Akera village, who studies in Jamia Milia Islamia in Delhi, reached Badarpur on Saturday to marry the daughter of Illiyas, a landlord. Everything was fine and nikaah was performed with all pomp and show. However, when the time came for ‘bidaai’ and Illiyas went to hand over the key of Maruti Alto to the bridegroom, he refused to take it. Ezaz said he would not accept anything less than a Scorpio and Rs 15 lakh in cash. The bridegroom and his father were not only beaten black and blue by the villagers, but they also took 25 baraatis hostage and tonsured heads of Ezaz and his father. Later in the night, a village panchayat was called and it pronounced the decision that the family of Ezaz would have to pay Rs 8 lakh — the money spent by the girl’s family since engagement — if they wanted to get released. Left with no option, Khurshid
Khan, Ezaz’s father agreed to pay the money. They were released on Sunday. Meanwhile, the police chose to keep away from the spot. A senior police officer defended the move saying that in cases like this, panchayat takes its own decision. Illiyas, while upset over the way things went, said he was also happy that his girl was saved from going into a greedy family. He said: ‘‘We agreed to the marriage only because the boy is studying in a reputed institute in Delhi. But I will rather marry my daughter off to someone illiterate.’’ The region, predominated by Meo-Muslims, has a high rate of illiteracy and poverty. Residents said some families in the area had started using dowry as a means to get money. They said that these families sent their boys to study in Delhi and then sought lakhs in dowry. ‘‘Landlords are willing to shell out big sums for an educated son-in-law, but this is a bad trend,’’ said Mehtab Alam, a villager.

THE HUMBLE CHIPATI BREAKFAST AT UDYOG VIHAR

Some 10% of the Indian population left the farms and live in the city in tents; in this case as building a villa.

DAILY ENCOUNTERS IX; FANTASY OVERCOMES POVERTY

DAILY ENCOUNTERS: THE GRASS-LIFTERS

WISE WORDS IV- FROM A "PREMIUM" PRIME MINISTER

PM Manmohan Singh said recently:
The female foeticide figures for 2001 showed that Punjab had only 798 girls (per 1000 boys) Haryana 819, Delhi 868 and Gujarat 883. The child sex ratio statistics in the 0- 6 years old group for the past few decades as have shown a continuous decline. The decline in number of girls per 1000 boys from 962 in 1981 to 927 in the year 2001 was alarming
“I urge every citizen to step forward and help in empowering the girl child. The action must begin at home, in our families. I do not say this as a prime minister of India. I say this as a proud father of 3 daughters. I wish for every girl in our country what I wish for my own daughters. Social discrimination against women begins in our homes and even before the child is born. One of the most inhuman, uncivilised and reprehensible practices is the female foeticide. The patriarchal mindset and the preference for male children are compounded by unethical conduct on the part of some medical practitioners who illegally offer sex determination services. We must overcome this great problem by social awareness and strict enforcement of the Pre- Conception and Pre- Natal Diagnostics Technique Act. Female illiteracy, obscurantist social practices, like child marriage and early marriage dowry, poor nutritional entitlements and taboos on woman in public places making the Indian women and especially the Indian girl child extremely vulnerable. The National Literacy Mission should be reoriented to improve the female literacy and challenge the adverse sex ratio in the country.”

Indeed wise words from a wise man. Myself I still think that the control of sex determination will not give any improvement to the figures, the improvement has to be come out of the families and the mindset of the people as stipulated before.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MILLENIUM CITY

The habitants of the so-called Millennium city are since years facing power cuts not only at day time (with high power consumption) but also at nighttime. Despite several announcement by the responsible Electrical Power Companies and addition of 4000 power distribution transformers, a new rural distribution system (that means the villagers have to suffer a little more than the citizen, and some trials to lower power theft nothing as changed.

Gurgaon has many other Indian cities is having a hard time with unannounced power cuts several times a day and not like Western may imagine for a couple of minutes, these power cuts can last for hour and hour. According to the residents 8 to 10 hours power cut is daily routine

“ These power cuts are getting larger in the city, it has been really horrible for us. There is absolutely no power in the morning and we are not abler to switch on our water pumps (of course there is no regular water supply either … but this is for one of the next post), the kids have to go to school without being washed”

There is a substantial gap between the demand and the supply of power to the city. Additionally the power distribution is mal-organized and the power plants maintenance is insufficient.

ALL THIS BY TOTAL INCOMPETENT AND IRRESPONSABLE PLANNING FROM HARYANA STATE, GURGAON CITY INCLUDING DLF.

How is it possible to build a city for 3- 4 Million people without taking care that there are the most elemental conditions for a regular live as electrical power, water, sewage and public transport. And what is the most amazing for me the Gurgaon citizens accept all this without any loud protest.

INDIAN ROMANCE VII

Panchayat murders couple over caste
CNN-IBN
Published on Monday , July 02, 2007 at 23:04

Karnal (Haryana): Less than 200 kilometers from the Capital of India, a scene of barbaric brutality, a mindless medieval mandate that has cost the lives of a young newly-wed couple.
Manoj and Babli got married on the May 18, not realising that their village panchayat would take strong objection to this.The panchayat's logic was that both Manoj and Babli were of the same gotra and that, in the eyes of the panchayat, makes them brother and sister.The entire village turned against them and the panchayat ostracised Manoj's family, decreeing that anyone violating the order will be fined Rs 25,000.
But it didn't stop there. On June 15, Manoj and Babli were allegedly kidnapped. A desperate search by their families resulted in nothing, not even the police was willing to give them much help and then they were found dead on June 24.Their bodies thrown into a canal, hands and legs tied up and were cremated by the police who declared them destitutes.
Finally, under pressure, they acted, arresting three people on charges of killing the couple but even then, the alleged killers show no remorse.“Those who do wrong have to die. Law does not recognize this but society punishes
such people,” said one of the accused. The families now want the panchayat members also arrested and investigated. “On June 20 we lodged an FIR but nothing happened,” said Manoj's cousin Narendra. Manoj's mother is still trying to deal with this senseless murder that claimed her only son and her daughter-in-law.“At least they should have given their bodies,” said Manoj’s mother Chandrapati.

And even as the investigation stutters to a start, Manoj's family knows that no punishment can ever compensate for their loss.

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