The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Friday, 6 May, took suo motu cognisance of the murder case of a 25-year-old man, who was brutally killed in public view at Saroornagar in Hyderabad by his wife's brother and another person, in a case of suspected honour killing on Wednesday, 4 May.
The NHRC issued notices to the chief secretary and director general of Police, Telangana, calling for a detailed report on the matter within four weeks.
Billipuram Nagaraju, a Dalit man, was brutally attacked and killed on a busy road in Saroornagar in Hyderabad over his marriage to a woman from the Muslim community on Wednesday, 4 May.
The police nabbed the two accused, who are Syed Ashrin Sulthana's brothers, Syed Mobin Ahmed, and her relative, Mohammed Masood Ahmed, and filed a case under IPC Section 302 (murder) and other relevant sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in the incident.
Gross Violation of Human Rights: NHRC
The Commission said that such a heinous crime in public view without any fear of law indicated lawlessness and amounted to a gross violation of human rights.
NHRC has asked the chief secretary to submit a report on whether the Telangana government has any policy to prevent such incidents of honour killing in cases of inter-caste/inter-religion marriage.
Meanwhile, the DGP has been asked to present the current status of the investigation, steps taken to safeguard the victim's wife and his family members and any relief granted by the state government to them.
NHRC has also asked for details on whether there were any lapses by the police authorities and, if so, what action has been taken against the guilty.
More About the Incident
The interfaith couple was attacked around 9 pm on Wednesday in a horrifying incident that was caught on CCTV. The couple, who was travelling on their two-wheeler, was pursued by the woman's brother and another relative on a bike.
Nagaraju, 26, was stabbed with a knife and beaten with an iron rod. A video of the incident shows a man approaching the injured Nagaraju with an iron rod, even as his wife, Syed Ashrin Sulthana, attempts to hold the assailant off. A crowd of people can also be seen surrounding the site of the murder.
After the arrest of the two accused, KT Rama Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi said in a tweet, "Please make sure they are given the harshest of punishments possible as per IPC."
He also tagged the Telangana Home Minister and Director General of Police in the tweet and thanked Rachakonda Police for their "swift action".
The police said that Sulthana's relatives had been looking for the couple since the two got married in January and had located them at a Maruti showroom on Wednesday. They had then followed the couple.
While the police have said that two men were behind the attack, Sulthana said that five men were involved in the murder. The deceased belongs to the Mala community, categorised as a Scheduled Caste in the state.
Sulthana told the media that she had been in a relationship with her husband since Class 10, and despite Nagaraju approaching her family and expressing his intention to marry her, they had declined the proposal.
As Sulthana's parents did not agree to their proposal, the couple got married on 31 January this year in an Arya Samaj ceremony in Hyderabad.
Suspecting that Sulthana's family members were following them, the couple had shifted to Visakhapatnam for a brief period, as per reports. They returned to the city about a week ago.
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