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In a horrifying case of honour killing, 16-year-old Jaspreet Singh was tied to a pillar and burnt alive in Mansa, Punjab, on Saturday. Singh was lured to an abandoned rice mill and beaten up, tied with a rope, doused with petrol, and set ablaze. The boy was gagged to muzzle his screams. Needless to add, Singh died on the spot. The young victim and his three killers—Jashan Singh, Gurjeet Singh and Raju Singh—all belong to the Dalit community.
The heinous honour killing was the culmination of some bad blood between two neighbourhood families. Jaspreet’s older brother reportedly fell in love with the accused Jashan Singh’s sister and the two eloped. Jaspreet recently celebrated the birth of his nephew by distributing sweets. This, by one version of the story, incensed Jashan’s family and led to the accused to commit the horror.
Amnesty India recorded 218 hate crime cases in 2018. Most of the victims were Dalits, others considered “lower caste”, women and transgenders. It’s an abject shame that such crimes take place routinely in a country which follows a constitution that assures every citizen equal rights. Despite the persistence of such malevolence, Indian law still does not recognize honour killings or hate crimes as specific offences. This not only makes it harder to appropriately convict offenders, it also means that the extent of such crimes may be far wider than officially noted. For proclamations such as “the world’s largest democracy” to hold meaning, the country must go beyond regular elections and uphold the covenant it has with its people. Everyone should feel equal, not just be so on paper.
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