Bihar has virtually turned into a “graveyard” of young lovers with the couples being killed in cold blood allegedly by their very own for falling in love. In the past one-and-a-half months, at least three incidents of honour killing have been reported, in which two couples and a girl have died.

What is strange is that  these cases have been occurring at frequent intervals despite the government’s move to promote inter-caste
marriages so as to maintain social harmony. The government has been
doling out attractive incentive up to Rs 1 lakh for the youngsters who break the social order but the situation on the ground remains quite alarming.

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In a fresh incident, two young lovers were killed, chopped into pieces and then
burnt on the same funeral pyres in Gaya district this past weekend. Sneha Kumari, 17, had fallen in love with Vikas Paswan who ran a coaching centre in the area. The girl belonged to powerful Yadav caste, which falls in the OBC category, whereas the youth came from the Dalit community.

In September last year, the pair eloped and then got married at a local temple
in defiance of the girl’s parents who later filed a case of kidnapping against the youth. Under pressures from the police, the couple surrendered after which the youth was sent to jail while the girl was handed over to her parents. The youth was released from jail barely a fortnight ago.

During the weekend, the youth was allegedly kidnapped by the girl’s parents and taken to the bank of a local river. Subsequently, the girl too was brought to the same place and killed along with the boy. Reports said after committing
the crime, the girl’s family chopped their bodies into pieces and burnt them on the same funeral pyre.

The horror saga came to the fore when the police, acting on a complaint filed by the boy’s father, picked up the girl’s family members and quizzed them extensively. It was during their interrogation that they confessed to the crime.

“The arrested persons have confessed to killing them to save their honour,” the local deputy SP Abhijit Kumar Singh said. He said the police had collected burnt remains of the victims and sending them for forensic test.

A more dreadful story was reported from Patna where a youth had his private parts chopped off before being battered to death along with his girlfriend last week. Here too, the boy identified as Prince Kumar hailed from a backward caste and had dared to fall in love with a girl from the influential upper caste Rajput.

When the girl’s family came to know about the affair, they withdrew her from the coaching centre where they met, but the boy now began frequenting her village which irked the parents. On the fateful night, he was caught sneaking into the room of his girlfriend after which he was given a sound beating by the girl’s family. They later allegedly chopped off his private parts before beating him to death. Subsequently, their bodies were thrown at two different places.

Last month too, a young girl was chopped to death allegedly by her parents after her love affair with a local boy had become public. An angry mob took out a candle march procession in Gaya town seeking justice for the girl after her headless body was recovered a few weeks after she had gone mysteriously
missing from home. During police investigation, it was found that her family members had killed her using a meat cleaver knife.