New Delhi: A 19-year-old girl living with her lover after eloping with him within days after her marriage with another person was allegedly strangled to death by her father in Dausa district, police said on Thursday.
Accused Shankar Lal Saini, 50, surrendered to the police soon after killing his daughter Pinki and confessed to his crime, said Assistant Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar.
He said Saini was taken into custody and a case of murder was registered against him at Kotwali police station.
He said Pinki was married to a man against her wishes on February 16 but she returned to her parental home three days later and eloped with her lover Roshan on February 21.
Following her elopement, her father had also lodged a police complaint, alleging abduction of his daughter, the ACP said.
He said Pinki’s family members eventually traced her and brought her back home where his father strangled her to death.
The incident in Rajasthan took place a day after a man in Uttar Pradesh’s Hardoi beheaded his 17-year-old daughter because of her relationship with a man.
“He said he saw his daughter in a compromising position with a man and he beheaded her in a fit of rage,” Anurag Vats, police superintendent of Hardoi district in northern Uttar Pradesh state, said. “He has confessed to his crime.”
Rising cases of this kind have led to the demand for a separate law against ‘honour killings’ – a term which feminist activists have increasingly stopped using because they say it reinstates the point that a family’s honour is tied to the behaviour of women and girls. Human rights groups say thousands of women and girls are killed across South Asia and the Middle East each year by family members angered at perceived damage to their “honour”.
(With agency inputs)