Manoj–Babli honour killing case
The accused in the murder included relatives of Babli (grandfather Gangaraj, who is said to have been a Khap leader,[1] brother, maternal and paternal uncles and two cousins).
Such caste-based councils are common in the inner regions of several Indian states, including Haryana, Punjab, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan, and have been operating with government approval for years.
[5] The Khap panchayat's ruling was based on the assumption that Manoj and Babli belonged to the Banwala gotra, a Jat community, and were therefore considered to be siblings despite not being directly related and any union between them would be invalid and incestuous.
[4][6] Lal Bahadur Khowal the lawyer representing Manoj's family said that "The police was refusing to arrest the criminal, Ganga Raj.
The khap head who ordered but did not take part in the killings received a life sentence, and the driver involved in the abduction a seven-year prison term.
According to Home Minister P. Chidambaram, the UPA-led central government was to propose an amendment to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in response to the deaths of Manoj and Babli, making honour killings a "distinct offense".
"[22] On 5 April 2007, says Chanderpati, "He ate his food and left to sleep at the shop since he had a class XII compartment exam in English to take the next day.
[22] After the trial, Manoj and Babli, accompanied by a team of five police officers assigned to them for protection, left for Chandigarh.
[28] Kuldip Thekedar,[29] a road contractor, witnessed the kidnapping and filed a complaint at the Butana police station in Karnal district, giving the licence plate number of the Scorpio.
[4][30] Later, Chanderpati ascribed the murder to the unauthorised withdrawal of the couple's security team ignoring the orders given by the district and sessions judge (DSJ) of Kaithal.
On 23 June, nine days later, their mutilated bodies, hands and feet tied, were fished out of the canal by Kheri Chowki police.
[17] After autopsy,[33] police preserved Manoj's shirt and Babli's anklet[30] and cremated the bodies as unclaimed on 24 June.
Police discovered a number of articles in the Scorpio used to kidnap the couple—parts of Babli's anklet, two buttons from Manoj's shirt, and torn photographs of the couple.
[36][37] Advocate Lal Bahadur Khowal,[28] Cornel Omparkash, and Rakesh Manjhu from Hisar, Haryana accepted the case.
[36] On 29 March 2010, after 33 months of 50 hearings[note 2] with 41 witnesses, the Karnal District court found the accused guilty of murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, and destroying evidence under respective sections in the IPC.
[note 3] The next day, 30 March, for the first time in Haryana state history, a death penalty verdict was announced in the double murder case for the five accused.
[40] The leader of the khap panchayat Ganga Raj (52),[15] was given a life sentence for conspiracy,[41][42][43] while the driver, Mandeep Singh, held guilty of kidnapping, was given a jail term of seven years.
[30] The SSP's statement was that "[i]t is correct that the deceased couple had given in writing not to take police security any further, but Jagbir Singh was well aware that there was a threat to their lives from the relatives of the girl."
The report stated that Jayender informed Gurdev Singh of the location of the police and that of Manoj and Babli over his mobile phone.
[49] In her verdict, district judge Vani Gopal Sharma stated, "This court has gone through sleepless nights and tried to put itself in the shoes of the offenders and think as to what might have prompted them to take such a step.
[52][53] The Indian media and legal experts hailed it as a "landmark judgement", a victory over these infamous assemblies, which acted for years with impunity as parallel judicial bodies.
"[55] Surat Singh, director of the Haryana Institute of Rural Development, Nilokheri, anticipated that the verdict will end the diktats of khap panchayats.
[60] Days after the verdict, a The Times of India headline hailed Chanderpati, who struggled years for justice, as "Mother Courage" for having done "what even top politicians and bureaucrats have shied away from doing—taken on the dreaded khap panchayats.
[70][71] The police chief of Karnal district, Rakesh Kumar Arya, claimed that Sharma did not complain about inadequate security.
[74] The vilest crimes are committed in the name of defending the honour of the family or women and we should hang our heads in shame when such incidents take place in India in the 21st century.
"[25][84] On 5 August 2010, in a Parliament session, Chidambaram proposed a bill that included "public stripping of women and externment of young couples from villages and any 'act which is humiliating will be punished with severity'" in the definition of honour killing[85] and that would "make khap-dictated honour killings a distinct offence so that all those who participate in the decision are liable to attract the death sentence".
[87][88][89] On 11 March, the Punjab and Haryana High Court commuted the death sentence awarded to four convicts – Babli's brother Suresh, uncles Rajender and Baru Ram and Gurdev in the Manoj–Babli honour killing case to life imprisonment.
[90] In an interview to NewsClick, Manoj's relatives – Seema and Chanderpati affirmed that they would challenge Ganga Raj's and Satish's acquittal in the Supreme Court.
[91] The 3 June 2012, episode, Intolerance to Love of TV series, Satyamev Jayate, hosted by actor Aamir Khan, featured an interview with Manoj's sister Seema and mother Chandrapati Banwala.
[92][93] In August 2013, senior journalist Chander Suta Dogra, published a book, Manoj and Babli: A Hate Story (Penguin) based on the honour killing case.
