Homicide has replaced suicide: Experts

The Antop Hill gang rape and murder was the fifth incident of a man spurned attacking his love interest in the past 17 months. Serena Menon reports.

The Antop Hill gang rape and murder was the fifth incident of a man spurned attacking his love interest in the past 17 months.

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Although Monday’s case involved local goons whom their neighbourhood has branded as perverts who routinely victimised vulnerable women, one of the accused, Nitya Devendra, was said to have expressed a desire to marry the victim but was snubbed by her parents.

According to experts, the frequency of cases of a person spurned turning hostile and violent is indicative of a lack of support systems for youth, globalisation and peer pressure.

“When the joint family was replaced with the nuclear family, there was no substitution for the support system that a joint family was,” said psychiatrist Anjali Chabbria. “Meanwhile, suicide got replaced by homicide, when people instead of feeling sorry, started feeling angry.”

Earlier, people would throw acid on their lovers’ faces or burn them. Now, it is rapes and murders.

Chayanika Shah, member of the Forum Against Oppression of Women said that when lovers don’t get what they feel they rightfully should, they get angry and frustrated. “A woman’s family and her lover feel that they own the woman and her rights,” Shah said. “It’s not surprising that such incidents have become common.”

The result: a rise in crimes of passion across socio-economic groups.