Honour Killing: Father strangles daughter and burns her

In a gory incident of suspected honour killing, a father with the help of his relatives strangulated his daughter to death and later burnt her dead body in the Jannaram block of Mancherial district of Telangana on the intervening night of Saturday for marrying out of her caste.

The incident came to light after the deceased’s husband made a complaint with the local police. The police could have saved the hapless girl if they searched for further leads.

According to Mancherial Deputy Commissioner of Police M S Venugopal Rao, the deceased is 22-year-old Pindi Anuradha, from Kalamadugu village who married her much younger lover Laxman on 3 December also from the same village despite the objection of her parents.

The parents and some family members of the girl dragged her out of her in-law's place, thrashed her and then choked her to death.

They destroyed the evidence by burning her body in a vacant field and then dispersing the ashes in a stream. On Monday police arrested all the culprits and said that the “Sattaiah, the father, mother, Mahesh, one of the two siblings of Anuradha, were interrogated and confessed to the crime.

“The girl belonged to Yadava community and a graduate, the boy is from Padmashali community and a B Tech graduate,” Rao said.

He further said that Anuradha’s parents, two siblings and uncles beat her to death first at their home after forcibly dragging her out of in-laws place around 8 p.m. The couple who ran away and got married at Arya Samaj here returned home only four days ago.

Ironically, the girl suspecting threat to her life posted her statement on social media saying that if anything happened to her or her husband her parents will be solely responsible.

“I informed my parents some six months ago that I am in love with Laxman and I want to marry him. They didn’t agree and even tried to implicate him in false cases. So we ran away and got married,” she explained in a sulfide video. She also urged police to save them from imminent death at the hands of her parents and Sarpanch if the village.