Indian father who beheaded daughter in honour killing arrested

An Indian man who beheaded his daughter and carried her severed head to the village police station has been arrested in the Hardoi district in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

The man himself told police he had attacked his 17-year-old daughter with an axe in anger over her relationship with a man. According to him, he caught his daughter with a man in a compromising position with a man, and as a reaction, he killed her in a fit of rage.

Anurag Vats, the police superintendent of Hardoi district confirmed that the accused has confessed to his crime. The villages had witnessed the man carrying the girl’s head and it was shared widely on social media as well.

Last month, a woman was burned alive by family members over an interfaith relationship in Uttar Pradesh. India recorded 24 honor killings in 2019. Two years earlier, Uttar Pradesh registered 14 of the country’s 92 such killings, the government’s crime data shows.

Almost 70 percent of the victims in honour killings are women, and almost all of them are from the upper caste. In 2018, the Indian government asked all states to set up special cells comprising police and welfare officers and a 24-hour helpline to help women facing harassment.