HC orders govt to protect couples, counsel families
In an all-encompassing order provoked by the growing incidence of honour crimes in Punjab and Haryana, the high court at Chandigarh, on Wednesday, directed both state governments to institutionalise systems to ensure liberty of couples who choose to marry against the wishes of their parents.
In wide-ranging directions that have been circulated to all districts in both states, the court has also ordered counselling of village panchayats and the creation of special cells in urban centres “to prevail upon resisting families to reconcile” with children who go against their wishes as also to convince parents and relatives no to take such opposition as any threat to family honour.
The court’s directions also grant runaway couples the liberty to approach the district and sessions judge at Chandigarh for protection. The police has been ordered “to deal sternly with parents or relatives or others who threaten such couples” and warned against registering false cases at the behest of parents and relatives. “Arrest (of the couple) be normally deferred till absolutely necessary and even in such cases criminal force against the boy or groom be avoided,” the court has said.
Welcoming the high court’s directions, senior Chandigarh counsel Rajeev Godara, however, questioned the Haryana government’s sincerity.
“I don’t really believe anything will change in a state where the chief minister actually chooses to describe the brutal killing of two young widows in Bhiwani as merely ‘a stray incident,” he said.
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