Questions being raised on Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao as brutal honour killing shocks Agra
The Jat family choked their 19-year-old daughter to death for falling in love with a Thakur boy, whom she wanted to marry.
In Short
- 19-year-old Jat girl killed for falling in love with a Thakur boy.
- Father and brother strangled her, burned body.
- Girl had informed the police that her life was in danger.
If there is one thing that most in the country can agree upon, it is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has no match in creating attractive slogans for the campaigns he launches.
However, just like his other barely working campaigns like 'Swachh Bharat' and 'Namami Gange', Modi's girl child protection campaign 'Beti Bachao - Beti Padhao' has seen barely any change in the situation of the girl child, as has been seen in Agra, where several doctors have been arrested for conducting female foeticide in the past three years, one of them even having held the prestigious position of Indian Medical Association Agra chapter president.
FAMILY MEMBERS ARRESTED
On Monday, the city woke up to the shocking news of an honour killing barely a few hundred meters away from the monument of love Taj Mahal, where a Jat family choked their 19-year-old daughter to death for falling in love with a Thakur boy, whom she wanted to marry. The police have arrested the father, uncle and brother of the deceased girl, while the remaining family members remain untraceable.
According to the local sources, Nandini (19), a resident of Kotli Bagichi locality of Tajganj area was a student of BSc. and wanted to marry her classmate Bhupendra. Nandini belonged to the Jat community while Bhupendra was Thakur. Nandini's family was not ready for this marriage and when she refused to marry anyone else, her father and brother strangled her and with the help of the rest of the family, burned her body in their farms.
Nandini had earlier expressed apprehensions to her friend that she feared being killed by her family if she didn't let go of Bhupendra. So, when she did not respond to several calls, her friend informed the police. Upon arriving at the spot, the police pulled out the badly burned body from the pyre and took it for post-mortem, where death by strangulation was confirmed.
The family had locked the house and absconded on Sunday night itself, but the police managed to arrest the girl's father, brother and uncle, who are the prime accused.
GIRL FEARED GETTING KILLED
Social activist Vijay Upadhyay said that the girl had informed the police herself that her life was in danger, but the police did not take it seriously. If the police had been serious about doing its duty, the girl could have been saved. He said that mere sloganeering would not save the lives of hundreds of girls who are losing their lives and honour in India every day. It requires a concrete action plan, something in which the UP government has been a failure till date.
He said that there was a need to increase awareness among the people of India about the changing times. "The caste barrier has been broken a long time back, but there are some people who do not wish to acknowledge this fact. It is these people who are bent upon protecting the arcane caste system at any cost, even if it required they one to murder their own dear ones," Upadhyay said.
The youth has decided that it does not care for caste or religion anymore, but the older generation does not agree to what Young India thinks and it will lead to generational clashes in the near future, he warned.
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