Indian police have arrested a man and accused him of beheading his own teenage daughter in a rage over her relationship with another man he did not like, BBC News reported on Thursday in what appears to be the latest gruesome case of so-called “honor killings” in the Asian nation. Police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh said Sarvesh Kumar was arrested when he walked his daughter’s head to the local police station.
BBC News said local police released a video of Kumar confessing to the crime, in which he explained that he was furious about his daughter’s relationship, that she had come alone, locked her in a room and raped her with ‘ decapitated a sharp object. .
Neighbors reported to police that Kumar on Wednesday apparently carried his daughter’s head through their Hardoi district after committing the alleged crime.
Sanjeev Verma / Hindustan Times / Getty
Defamation is a big role problem in india, naburige Pakistan, and other countries where family members – mostly women and girls – are attacked and even killed by their relatives because they considered the family a disgrace. Such crimes are more prevalent in rural communities where centuries-old traditions and deep-rooted cultural norms still determine the rules of everyday life.
According to the BBC, although no official statistics exist, hundreds of people are believed to be killed every year in India by family members due to relationships or marriages that were contrary to the wishes of their parents or other elders.
Crime is just one aspect of a much broader problem of violence against women and girls that India has been grappling with for years. The BBC said statistics compiled by India’s National Crime Records Bureau showed that more crimes were committed against women in Uttar Pradesh last year than any other Indian state.
In March 2020, India hanged four men for the brutal gang rape of a paramedic student in Delhi in 2012. The rape and murder of the 23-year-old woman caused massive street protests across India and attracted worldwide attention among the plight of India’s women. .
But CBS News’ Arshad R. Zargar reported that little has changed despite the outburst of public anger. Government data released in September 2020, which showed an average of 87 rapes, were reported every day in the previous year – an increase of more than 7% from 2018.
In January, the ruling of an Indian court that the protest of a child cannot be considered sexual assault as long as there is no “skin-to-skin contact” or “sexual intent” is widely criticized by rights activists.
The verdict of the judge of the High Court in Bombay, Pushpa V. Ganediwala, has deprived a 39-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in 2016.