Court rejects honour killing theory

Highlighting the plight of a woman in the ‘socio-cultural’ framework of which Bharti Yadav was a part, a city court disagreed with the claim of the defence that Nitish Katara’s murder was an "honour killing", reports Naziya Alvi.

Highlighting the plight of a woman in the ‘socio-cultural’ framework of which Bharti Yadav was a part, a city court disagreed with the claim of the defence that Nitish Katara’s murder was an "honour killing".

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"The murder of Nitish Katara is nothing but the outcome of the prevalent gender bias as Bharti had exercised her own discretion in choosing her male partner. She was about to execute her plans to marry him which was not to the liking of the accused persons and the result was that a young and innocent boy lost his life at their hands," said Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur in her judgment.

A 24 year-old MBA, Katara was kidnapped and killed by Vikas and Vishal Yadav six years ago as they were averse to his relationship with their sister Bharti Yadav.

The court criticised the defence’s attempts to portray the murder as an "honour killing" and said, "it is absurd to call the murder of Nitish Katara as ‘honour killing’ by the accused. It wasn’t the ‘honour killing’ but the narrow mindset of the convicts that led to the gruesome murder".

The court added that such mindset leads to "shocking" and "macabre"consequences, as it happened in the Nitish Katara murder case.

The trial judge also pulled the defence for making attempts to "mislead" court and also to put pressure upon the witnesses or to give temptations so that they did not depose against them in the court.