Two more teenagers were poisoned to death early on Sunday morning in Haryana’s Fatehabad district adding to the growing list of honour killings in the caste and tradition-bound state.
The bodies of Shyam and Reena — both in their late teens — were discovered in Smain village with pesticide pills scattered all around.
Police officials investigating the incident said while it was too early to be conclusive they were actively probing the possibility that the youngsters were killed for honour.
Station house officer Madan Lal told reporters the couple was in love and had wanted to marry but the alliance was opposed by their families.
“We have had the crime scene thoroughly examined by forensic experts and are also questioning relatives of both the girl and the boy,” said the police official adding that things would become clearer after autopsy reports come in.
Shyam and Reena’s bodies have been sent to the civil hospital at Fatehabad for postmortem examinations. Haryana, Delhi and Punjab have witnessed a spurt in honour killings in recent days. On June 20 18-year-old Monika and her boyfriend Rinku (19) were murdered by relatives in Bhiwani’s Nimriwali village.
In an even more bizarre incident six days later in Sonepat, two — 12 and 14 years old — girls were killed by their own grandmother and uncles after one of them confessed to an affair with a cousin brother.
In Punjab too, in May a runaway couple was gunned down by hired assassins in Patti Town closely followed by the murder of a young bride and her mother-in-law. More recently, 18-year-old Amritpal Kaur — a Belgium-based NRI — was poisoned by her mother and step father in Amritsar because of her affair with a boy of a lower caste.
The killings go on despite the recent (March) death sentences awarded to five men found guilty of similarly murdering a young couple in Karnal.