Honour killing: Delhi HC upholds man's life term for daughter's murder

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has upheld the conviction and life sentence of a man for smothering to death his 20-year-old daughter who had eloped with a boy from her own community.

The decision of the trial court, which had termed the offence as an "honour killing", was concurred with by the High Court which observed that the girl was killed by her father as her conduct of eloping with a boy from the same village and community was not to his liking.

"The conduct of victim not being to the liking of Onkar (father), the fate that ensued for her, a homicidal death is evident from the post-mortem report. In view of the evidence on record, we upheld the conviction and order on sentence passed by the trial court.

"The appeal is dismissed. The appellant (Onkar) will suffer the remaining sentence," a bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Mukta Gupta said. The court also rejected Onkar's contention that his daughter committed suicide as her lover had backed out from marrying her after having sexual relations with her, saying "injuries on the arms (of victim) clearly show that the deceased was pinned down and, thereafter smothered which was borne out from the injuries on the face of the deceased".

The bench also noted that as per the doctor who conducted the post-mortem, "the reason for asphyxia was smothering and not consumption of drug". The trial court while convicting and awarding life term to the father had observed that the case was one of "honour killing".

The trial court's 2011 ruling had come in a case dating back to March 3, 2009, when Onkar had murdered his daughter, who was in love with a boy of her village, belonging to same community and sub-caste (gotra). The court had noted that the couple had eloped on March 2, 2009 to get married and stayed at the boy's sister's place for a night.

An infuriated Onkar, however, managed to get his daughter back home from the boy, falsely promising him and his sister's family members that he had given consent to the marriage, but needed to speak to his daughter for 30 minutes before deciding upon it. According to the prosecution, Onkar and other family members, after getting the girl back home began beating her, drugged her and eventually smothered her to death.