India: Death penalty awarded for honor killing

It didn't take Delhi's courts long to act on Supreme Court recommendations that the death penalty should be awarded in cases of so-called honor killing. Just a day after the Supreme Court's statement, a Delhi high court sentenced a mother and her two sons to death for killing one of the men's wives, the Hindustan Times reports.

This is the first time that the death penalty has been awarded for an honor killing, the paper said.

Various newspaper editorials yesterday questioned the wisdom of singling out honor killings for harsh sentences, when the law already has an established standard for awarding the death penalty for especially heinous crimes termed "the rarest of the rare."

Though the murder was committed by family members, and the motive related to the victim's breaking of social convention, it's a matter for debate whether the judge was correct in considering the crime an honor killing rather than an ordinary murder.  Though honor killing has not been defined by Indian law, as far as I know, from the context of the Supreme Court's sentence recommendation it is clear that the court was referring to the murder of young couples from different castes or religions who try to marry against their parents' wishes.

Apparently motivated by the victim's attempt to force the family to transfer some property to her children, in this case the murder was committed in front of her three minor children, the paper said. The killers then dumped Urmila’s body in a bed box in their house.

“It is the right time to stamp out these barbaric, feudal practices which are a slur on our nation. In such cases, death penalty is necessary as a deterrent for such outrages, uncivilised behaviour. A message should go to the society if an innocent woman is killed in such a brutal manner,” the paper quoted Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Dinesh Kumar Sharma as saying.