At 16, love feels all-consuming.
There’s little more in life that seems more important than time spent with your significant other at this tender age.
And if, try as you might, you can’t convince your parents to let you see more of them, you’ll stop at nothing to find a way – even if you know it will ultimately get you into trouble.
But in the tale of one teenager’s short life – it’s a forbidden outing with her boyfriend that led to her brutal murder.
Murder at the hands of the people who gave her life.
Just nights after she told her older sister she was leaving the house to attend the party of her boyfriend, who she was dating against her family’s wishes, she returned home to a brutal beating by her father, who then, enlisting the help of a local butcher, murdered her in cold blood.
Weeks later, her mutilated body was found strewn across the road on the edge of her town.
She had been decapitated, her face completely disfigured by acid, and one of her arms cut off.
A few short weeks earlier, her father had played the role of concerned parent – reporting her missing in December. The report claimed he feared she had been abducted.
“We went to several places and searched our relatives’ homes but to no avail,” he said in a missing person’s submission. “She could have been abducted while going to meet a friend on the evening of December 28”.
But when her body was found and investigations were conducted, the family’s story came undone.
News.com.au reports the 16-year-old’s torso was in a field on the side of a road. Her severed head was found 5km away, its face seriously seared.
“It’s not possible that that was the spot where the murder happened and the body kept lying there without anyone noticing it,’’ a police spokesman said. “She was presumably killed soon after she was sent away by the father with his friend. And then they must have kept the body somewhere before throwing it on the outskirts of the village.’’
Police said the boyfriend was initially interviewed under suspicions she had been gang-raped.
However, on contacting the family, including her little sister, it became clear they were far from innocent.
“After the recovery of the body, we called the parents to the police station several times to record their statements, but they made lame excuses and didn’t show up,” police said. “Their dubious attempt to escape interrogation further confirmed our suspicions.”
Under interrogation, confessions were made by the family and the butcher.
As it transpired; it was an honour killing.
The girl was part of the strict Patwa community in rural India where love is not permitted – only arranged marriage – so had been killed by her father for bringing shame to the family.
“This angered the parents, who plotted the cold-blooded murder with the help of a butcher friend,” police said.
Inhabitants of the surrounding Gaya district, known as the home to traditional Indian weavers, are outraged by her death, and are adamant the family are being framed by police. It has ignited a protest for justice.
“This is the cruellest incident we have seen in our lifetime. The killers acted like animals severing her head, chopping her limbs and pulling out her intestines. Our demand is simple, neither victimise innocent nor spare the culprits,” the president of the local weavers association told media. “Gaya police is not doing justice. The victim’s parents were picked up in the wee hours and tortured to confess killing their own daughter. We were not allowed to meet them.”
Another community leader said: “We never thought the police would stoop so low. The poor couple doesn’t have the wherewithal to contest the case in court. But the community stands by them and would fight for justice so that the guilty are jailed, not the innocent”.
The girl’s father, Turaj Prasad, and his butcher friend have been arrested. Both have reportedly confessed their crime.
Her mother and three sisters have also been detained for further questioning.
The chilling story is one in a series to come out of rural India. In 2012, a student was raped and murdered in a New Delhi bus. All of the passengers — and the driver — raped her and beat her friend in an attack that shocked the world.
And last year, eight men were accused of raping and murdering an eight-year-old Muslim girl in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state.
Top Comments
Sadly honour killings are extremely common. They just don’t get reported unless it happens in places like the US or UK which is why a lot of these parents that have sent their kids for arranged marriages send them “home” with the threat that you either marry who we want or face the consequences (ie: die). And they do it in the most grizzly, painful ways possible to make a statement to others. There is a lot of corruption and blind eyes being turned in regards to these crimes often. I have studied this sort of crime and its absolutely horrific. For those interested (and the author) I’d recommend reading shame (and daughters of shame) by jasvinder sangheera.
The government should enforce its laws all over the country.
Unfortunately with these sorts of things in these places, it’s not so simple. There’s a great deal of corruption
Enforcing laws against corruption is happening around the world. Join Transparency International and give your support. India wants to be a first world country, they need to fix alot of human rights things first. Having money is not enough.