Honour killing: Mother kills teen girl for wanting to marry Dalit youth; father & brother also nabbed

A tea-seller, his wife and their son have been arrested for allegedly murdering their 19-year-old daughter for wanting to marry a person from schedule caste community

The Gandhidham police in Kutch district arrested a tea-seller, his wife and their son for allegedly murdering their 19-year-old daughter for wanting to marry a person from schedule caste community. Police said that the family members of the victim were arrested after the post-mortem report established that she was first strangulated and then hanged to dodge police suspicion.

The Gandhidham town police said that they arrested Ramesh Rajgor, 42, wife Rashmi, 40, and their son Manish, 20, for murdering their daughter Bharati on Saturday and have been sent in judicial custody. The alleged murder took place on February 28. Police said that the parents and the brother together strangulated Bharati and later hanged her from a ceiling to show that she committed suicide.

"We received some information that the victim girl was in love with a Dalit boy and the parents were against her. We got to know that they used to have lots of quarrel with her over this issue. In the night after the murder we interrogated her brother who later admitted to the crime," Kutch (East) Superintendent of Police Parixita Rathod told DH. She added "All the three accused have confessed to the killing and have been arrested.

Police said that Bharati was in love with Manoj Vaghela for more than two-and-a-half years. They first met at a factory in Kandla where they used to work. Police said that her parents had to break her engagement with another person from their Brahmin community after she opposed. Problem started in the family when the parents came to know that she wanted to marry Vaghela as he belonged to lower caste, police said.

"On February 28 night at around 10:30 to 11:00, Bharati and her mother got involved in a heated argument. It was then that her mother overpowered Bharati and strangulated her. Her brother Manish also helped in the act while the father came home later. When they realised that she was dead and had urinated and defected they changed Bharati's cloths and hid it. Then they hanged her from the ceiling. Manish took some pictures and sent it to couple of relatives to show that she killed herself," said police inspector B S Suthar who is investigating the case.

Police said that Manish called 108 emergency service and Bharati was taken to the hospital where the doctors declared her brought dead. Suthar told DH, "We suspected that there was some foul play. It didn't look like a case of suicide. We saw injury marks on Bharati's neck and waited for a detailed medical report. Meanwhile, we also interrogated all three of them separately whose versions didn't match. After a while, they all admitted to killing Bharati."