Haryana women panel cremates girl killed for honour

ROHTAK: After refusal by her parents to cremate the body of Mamta Devi (18), who was shot dead on August 8 for marrying a Dalit man, the Haryana State Commission for Women came forward to perform her last rites in Rohtak on Saturday.
The police have arrested foster and biological parents of Mamta on Friday for hatching a conspiracy and aiding the double murder. They have been identified as Mamta’s foster parents Ramesh Kumar and Krishna Devi, residents of Shyam Colony in Rohtak, and biological parents Ramkesh Kumar and Sarita Devi, residents of Gaddi Kheri village of the district. The accused were brought in a local court and barring Ramesh Kumar, the other three were sent to judicial custody. Ramesh was sent to police remand for two days.



The girl’s parents in police custody


According to Rohtak SP Jashandeep Singh Randhawa, all four accused were keeping a tab on the movements of Mamta and had conspired to eliminate her by colluding with her cousin Mohit Kumar. He said Mohit had hired killers from Uttar Pradesh, who had come in a Maruti Suzuki Swift car on August 7 for the killing.

Meanwhile, the girl’s family members had refused to accept her body objecting to her getting married to a Dalit. Mamta’s in-laws wanted to accept the body from the PGIMS, Rohtak, after the postmortem. They faced objection from their village residents, who held a panchayat and decided not to let the cremation take place in their village. Expressing shock over the development, Haryana women commission chairperson Pratibha Suman and district administration came forward to cremate the mortal remains of the girl in the presence of the police force.

Earlier, the commission has suggested the police not to hand over mortal remains to the girl’s family as they had murdered the victim for the sake of their fake ‘honour’.