People of underdeveloped/rural areas often think that a women’s chastity is tied to a family’s honour and getting involved in pre-marital sex, marrying someone of girl’s individual choice, divorcing or having relationship with a person without the family’s consent is considered as a highly degraded act. The act of honour killing is mostly done by men where women are shot, burned, buried alive, strangled to death with horrifying regularity.
According to the United Nations, 5,000 women and girls are victims of honour killings every year. It is not only women but sometimes males also become the victims. The ratio of women in this case exceeds by 90 percent. The tradition of honour killing activates the caste and gotra culture which continues to stigmatize the society.
In the recent case of Ankit Saxena, where the boy was stabbed to death by the family members of a Muslim girl with whom he was in love with for 3 years. The tension boiled up when the girl’s family realised that she was in love with a Hindu boy. The girl had a heated argument with her parents and went on to meet the boy. Ankit was kidnapped while he was on the way to meet the girl. He was stabbed to death by the girl’s father and brother, his mother was also badly beaten up. The family was held guilty and the Chief Justice Deepak Mishra stated that two adults are free to marry and “no third party” has a right to harass the couple.
The accused of these kind of cases often claim that honour killing happens because of the so-called caste or gotra system and the children born out of these kinds of inter caste relationships has to face genetic deformity. There were almost 251 cases of honour killings in the year 2015. Honour killings are mostly reported in places like Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh and widespread in many areas of southern India.
There are several penalties that can be imposed for committing honour killing but there is no specific law dealing separately with it. There is always lack of implementation of domestic laws and the violence faced by women. Execution of these laws is difficult because our judiciary sees honour killing as fate of victims and not crime. Several politicians also support the idea of the Khap panchayat being the ultimate authority for deciding the fate of the innocent couples who marry out of their gotra or cast. Khap panchayats are the ego-proclaimed leaders of caste courts in a village. They were considered as the custodians of honour in the medieval era but now further encouragement on the role of Khap panchayat will only bring mishap to the society.
If you think that honour killings happen among the illiterate people in villages, then you are wrong. Honour killings also happen among the highly educated people residing in urban areas and the major reason is their mindset. No matter if u sit in a well-furnished home or a home with broken roof it is your mindset that defines the kind of person you are. If we look around there can be prime examples of such mindset around us no matter how established the area is. There can be hundreds of laws which ban honour killing but the real challenge will come when the perspective of people.