The public beheading of a woman by her brother in Kolkata
highlights a surge in so-called 'honour killings'.
The policeman jumped to his feet as the
man walked into the station and placed the head of his sister, along with the
butcher knife that decapitated her, on the table in front of him.
The incident in Kolkata on December 7 was
another killing in the name of "honour" and there has been a surge in
such attacks over the past several months.
Nilofar Bibi, 22, was only 14 years
old when she left home in an arranged marriage. Alleging torture carried out by
her in-laws, Bibi returned to her parents on November 28, but vanished days
later.
Her brother, Mehtab Alam, 29, had
discovered his sister was living with an old boyfriend, Firoz, an
auto-rickshaw driver. Alam stormed into the home and dragged Bibi onto the
street in broad daylight.
Passers-by looked on in horror as he cut
off Bibi's head while saying "she had sinned and had to be
punished".
Alam left his sister's body in a pool of
blood on the road, and calmly walked to the police station, her head in hand,
to surrender himself. The siblings' family expressed support for Alam, saying they
were proud he upheld their honour.
In a country currently caught up in
collective outrage over a gang rape of a medical student in New Delhi, Bibi's
killing registered only a passing reference in the national media.
But the coverage - or the lack of it -
failed to hide the true extent of a scourge that bedevils many Indian women.
In a similar incident, a 17-year-old girl,
a resident of Khoraon village, Kaushambi in Uttar Pradesh, was hacked to death
by her father for having an affair with a 20-year-old from another religion
from the same village, on December 24.
In the south, a 19-year-old woman in
Sangameshwar village in Dharwad, Karnataka, was allegedly killed and burnt by
her parents on December 23.
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