Nandita Sengupta, TNN 26 July 2009
KINANAGAR (MEERUT): It's been a fortnight but an invisible fear still casts its shadow on every home in Kinanagar, a sprawling village of over 10,000, 20 km east of Meerut. On July 10, two teenagers - Manoj, a Dalit boy and Afsana, a Muslim girl - were brutally killed here. All in the name of honour, although nobody dares spell it out. Villagers display a deliberate nonchalance, and put forward defences for the killings. It is the 'honourable' thing to do.
The alleged killers were the girl's brothers and all of 20 years old. They murdered the couple in broad daylight. There were no witnesses. No one in the village admits to any knowledge of intimacy between Manoj and Afsana.
And no one in the village has a word of sympathy for them. Instead, the elders of the village seem relieved that they are dead. "If one of them had died, and the other lived, it could have become a Hindu-Muslim problem," says the pradhan, Suresh Chaudhry Thakur, a wiry man with blank staring eyes.
The dead youth's sister says the 19-year-old was eating roti-sabzi at 9.30 in the morning when he received word that Afsana, the 18-year-old daughter of farm labourer Kalwa, wanted him to come round.
The only son of labourer Ompal, smoothed his Salman Khan's Tere Naam hairdo, gobbled his meal, changed into his favourite blue rose print shirt and dashed off to Afsana's house.
He knocked on the door, which opened, only for him to be attacked with cutlasses. Afsana's brothers were friends with Manoj. As his alleged assailants though, they slashed his throat and stomach, killing him immediately.
Neighbours recall Afsana gurgling blood as she raced into the lane in a black printed salwar-kameez. She fell dead, some 100 m from Manoj.
Their crime? No one dares ask. Villagers claim the boys fought over Rs 1,500 and Afsana came in the way. But the savageness of the slaughter belies this claim. Had Afsana and Manoj taken a liking to each other? Kinanagar denies this, to a man. They weren't in love, everybody claims. "If we had suspected an affair, we would have handled it. But we didn't get a whiff of it. Such milna-julna is not allowed in our village," says Thakur. He adds after a pause, "Yeh galat hai (This is wrong)." The murders or love? He just stares.
But the message has gone out loud and clear to the young. Students at the inter-college recall seeing the bodies being taken away.
"There was so much blood, why did they have to be killed?" asks Afsana's college mate, fear etched on her face at the thought of being named. Even talking about Afsana is sacrilege. The iron rule has been re-stated. You don't fall in love with the wrong person.
Murders are common in Meerut's rural belt. It is never clear if they are honour killings though because the records don't show that.
For the village, the arrest of Afsana's four brothers is collateral damage. Justice has already been done. Even Sharad Sachan, superintendent of police, Meerut (rural), says, "The focus always is to ensure order in the aftermath."
The whys and wherefores of such a crime are beyond the purview of the police. When Sachan rushed to the spot on the day of the murders, he found people shocked, but sauntering by nonetheless. "They simply clam up. Our job is to maintain order, so we don't prod much," he admits.
Kinanagar still doesn't sleep easy, though villagers have spent the last two weeks convincing the two devastated families that the deaths were fated to happen. Murder, after all, was the most 'honourable' thing to do.
Source
KINANAGAR (MEERUT): It's been a fortnight but an invisible fear still casts its shadow on every home in Kinanagar, a sprawling village of over 10,000, 20 km east of Meerut. On July 10, two teenagers - Manoj, a Dalit boy and Afsana, a Muslim girl - were brutally killed here. All in the name of honour, although nobody dares spell it out. Villagers display a deliberate nonchalance, and put forward defences for the killings. It is the 'honourable' thing to do.
The alleged killers were the girl's brothers and all of 20 years old. They murdered the couple in broad daylight. There were no witnesses. No one in the village admits to any knowledge of intimacy between Manoj and Afsana.
And no one in the village has a word of sympathy for them. Instead, the elders of the village seem relieved that they are dead. "If one of them had died, and the other lived, it could have become a Hindu-Muslim problem," says the pradhan, Suresh Chaudhry Thakur, a wiry man with blank staring eyes.
The dead youth's sister says the 19-year-old was eating roti-sabzi at 9.30 in the morning when he received word that Afsana, the 18-year-old daughter of farm labourer Kalwa, wanted him to come round.
The only son of labourer Ompal, smoothed his Salman Khan's Tere Naam hairdo, gobbled his meal, changed into his favourite blue rose print shirt and dashed off to Afsana's house.
He knocked on the door, which opened, only for him to be attacked with cutlasses. Afsana's brothers were friends with Manoj. As his alleged assailants though, they slashed his throat and stomach, killing him immediately.
Neighbours recall Afsana gurgling blood as she raced into the lane in a black printed salwar-kameez. She fell dead, some 100 m from Manoj.
Their crime? No one dares ask. Villagers claim the boys fought over Rs 1,500 and Afsana came in the way. But the savageness of the slaughter belies this claim. Had Afsana and Manoj taken a liking to each other? Kinanagar denies this, to a man. They weren't in love, everybody claims. "If we had suspected an affair, we would have handled it. But we didn't get a whiff of it. Such milna-julna is not allowed in our village," says Thakur. He adds after a pause, "Yeh galat hai (This is wrong)." The murders or love? He just stares.
But the message has gone out loud and clear to the young. Students at the inter-college recall seeing the bodies being taken away.
"There was so much blood, why did they have to be killed?" asks Afsana's college mate, fear etched on her face at the thought of being named. Even talking about Afsana is sacrilege. The iron rule has been re-stated. You don't fall in love with the wrong person.
Murders are common in Meerut's rural belt. It is never clear if they are honour killings though because the records don't show that.
For the village, the arrest of Afsana's four brothers is collateral damage. Justice has already been done. Even Sharad Sachan, superintendent of police, Meerut (rural), says, "The focus always is to ensure order in the aftermath."
The whys and wherefores of such a crime are beyond the purview of the police. When Sachan rushed to the spot on the day of the murders, he found people shocked, but sauntering by nonetheless. "They simply clam up. Our job is to maintain order, so we don't prod much," he admits.
Kinanagar still doesn't sleep easy, though villagers have spent the last two weeks convincing the two devastated families that the deaths were fated to happen. Murder, after all, was the most 'honourable' thing to do.
Source
Labels:
Afsana,
Indian Muslims - Current Affairs,
Manoj
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