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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Between life and love by Nandita Sengupta and Sukhbir Siwach

Between life and love by Nandita Sengupta and Sukhbir Siwach

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published Published on Jun 21, 2010   modified Modified on Jun 21, 2010


Honour killings are being reported at an unnervingly quick clip, but what escapes attention is the fast and furious increase in numbers of couples seeking protection, fearing for their lives once they decide to marry. Advocates say the Punjab & Haryana high court receives as many as 50 applications a day from couples seeking protection, a staggering ten-fold rise from about 5 to 6 a day five years ago. Such is the pressure that the high court recently ordered district and sessions judges also to hear petitions.

The increase has been stark in the last five years. Advocate Rajeev Godara says the bulk of his work is now helping young couples. "I’ve received even 20 couples a day," he says. Thousands of petitions have been filed, prompting Justice Mohinder Pal to comment, "For how long can the state play mute spectator. How much can courts provide solace? I have before me young married persons running pillar to post, chased by musclemen or police."

Police protection hardly helps, say activists. Standard operating procedure in the case of a runaway man and woman ends up with the woman’s family filing a case of kidnapping and/ or rape against the man or his family. The woman shows up as ‘missing’ in Haryana police’s records. From November 2009 to May 2010, of the 686 people filed as ‘missing’ on Haryana police’s website, a largish 30% are females aged between 15 and 28 years.

Police hunt the couple down. If the girl is under-18, she is forcibly returned to her family. If her age is suspect, and she refuses her family, she is packed off to a nari niketan and the guy is jailed. This usually takes place in the month between a couple’s registering their wish to marry and the registration, which has mandatory month in-between: a provision begging to be altered. "Fear of cases filed under section 363 (kidnapping) and 366 (compelling/ inducing woman into marriage) against the ‘husband’ drives the couple to court. If registration is immediate, such cases can’t proceed," says advocate Kulbir Singh Dhaliwal. Jaipur-based activist Kavita Srivastava moots the idea of same-day registration. "The more time you give, more the problems for the couple," she says. Many couples also surface to protect their families. In the headline-grabbing Manoj-Babli murder, for instance, the posed picture of the two garlanding each other was taken for Babli to prove that she married Manoj of her own accord. This was the only way to ensure that the kidnapping case against her mother-in-law Chandrapati, of Karora village in Kaithal, could be quashed. It was on that visit that the two were murdered.

As is clear, not every couple is killed. Activists say barely a handful are murdered: what determines the fate of the target is the couple’s financial independence, political clout or wherewithal to pay off the khap. Lawyers say 90% cases are ‘solved’. "Nobody says a word when a politician’s children decide to marry against norms. It’s very selective," says Aidwa’s Sudha Sundararaman. Or when couples can pay the ‘fines’ khaps impose, in short paying their way out. Matters come to a head if the woman marries a lower caste guy. Her succession rights can mean property going — via the girl — into a lower-caste family. Inter-caste, intra-village, intra-gotra are the big daddies frowned upon. But again, selective. "A khap had declared a couple brother-sister recently and nullified their marriage. We intervened and as the boy was Delhi-based and had clout, their khap revoked the decision," says Sundararaman.

In a twisted manner, making the most of couples’ plight are escort services that sprang up in Chandigarh to help couples get away, seek protection and marry, providing everything from the necessary documents to basic wedding finery. One-room gurudwaras, temples with pundits and all included in the ‘package’. "The government ordered closure of two such ‘agencies’ operating in one-room set-ups," says Godara.


The Times of India, 22 June, 2010, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Between-life-and-love/articleshow/6077052.cms


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