Delhi Honour Killing

In the dingy lanes of a rural suburb, where a family allegedly murdered its own daughter and her boyfriend in the name of 'honour killing', a cold silence greets outsiders.

Two dramatically different versions of Delhi co-exist in the heart of the city. Right now, the first one is being spruced up like a soon-to-be bride, under the facade of modernisation for the upcoming Commonwealth Games.

And voila! Meet her diabolic twin that perpetrated the brutal murder of an innocent couple in love under the infernal shadow of honour killing.

Here, in the mosquito infested lanes of Swarup Nagar in north-east Delhi, Asha Saini, 19, and her boyfriend Yogesh, 20, met a gory end allegedly at the hands of her family. On Sunday night, the girl's family is said to have beaten up the couple and electrocuted them at her uncle Omprakash's flat in the sparsely populated colony.

The girl's family had disapproved of Asha's relationship with Yogesh, a driver, and had asked the boy to back off.

According to Omprakash's next-door neighbour and eye-witness Umesh, Yogesh had been summoned to the Swarup Nagar flat, where the girl had been detained by her uncle and aunt since the last 20 days.

few minutes later, says Umesh, the girl's aunt was heard screaming in the balcony about Yogesh's arrival. An infuriated Omprakash then attacked the boy with a stick, says Umesh.

The neighbours tried to intervene but were curtly asked to mind their own business. Asha's cousin, Sanjeev, dispersed the curious onlookers.

The girl's parents also reached the flat soon and the enraged family allegedly tortured the couple for hours.

"From 2 am onwards I could hear the boy wailing. The girl was pleading for his life. I could sense something was fishy but couldn't communicate with anyone as I had no access to a telephone at that hour," said Umesh.

At approximately 4 am, Umesh saw the girl's family scurrying out of the house, but the couple was missing.

He told rediff.com that had he not witnessed the whole drama in his adjacent verandah, the murder would never have been accounted for.

"It seemed the family intended to dispose of the two dead bodies in the Maruti car the boy had arrived in. They brought the car very close to the gate. But sensing my presence, they took the car back to its original spot and rode away on three motorbikes," he says.

The three other neighbouring families had left before sunrise, said Kalpana, another neighbour, possibly due to Sanjeev's threats and a fear of police investigation.

The police found the dead bodies with multiple bruises and burns at 8 am on Monday. They nabbed the girl's uncle and her father Suresh Kumar Saini, who admitted to the barbaric crime.

According to the police, the girl's family had taken the extreme step as the boy hailed from a lower caste.

Source: news.rediff.com