An entire family in Sehore of Madhya Pradesh has been wiped off in a brutal case of honour killing after a 21-year-old man, whose wife had been raped and murdered by her own father angered at her marrying outside caste, killed himself by hanging in Kalapipal village on Friday.
The body of Pradeep Vishwakarma was recovered from his home in Kalapipal under Ichhawar police station, where he stayed alone. The sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP) of Nasrullahganj, Prakash Mishra confirmed to THE WEEK that the deceased was the husband of the young woman who was raped and killed by her father under the Ratibad police station in neighbouring Bhopal, earlier this month.
“Though we have not recovered any suicide note as yet, prima facie it is a case of suicide. The postmortem report is awaited for further details. A case has been registered and a probe is on,” the SDOP said.
The suicide brings to a tragic end the story of a young family shattered by honour killing. The young couple's infant son had died due to pneumonia on the night of Diwali (November 4) and it was on the pretext of the last rites of this infant that the father took his 25-year-old daughter to the jungles of Samasgarh and allegedly raped and killed her on November 5.
The rape and murder had come to light on November 14 when the bodies of the young woman and the infant were spotted by forest employees. Ratibad police solved the case in two days, arresting the father of the woman who confessed to the crime. According to police, the brother of the woman was also charged with conspiracy as he had accompanied his father and sister to the forests but stayed outside on the road.
Police sources said that the tragic story began about a year and a half ago in Sehore when Pradeep, a manual worker from Kalapipal, married the young woman (name withheld to protect identity) residing in village Pangri under Bilkisganj police station, also in Sehore.
The accused father (his name also withheld), enraged over his daughter marrying outside caste, had then lodged a missing complaint of his daughter with the police, but the couple had presented themselves at the Bilkisganj police station. Six months ago, the woman gave birth to a son and in October last week, when Pradeep was to leave for Raipur for his work, she went to her elder sister's place in Ratibad (Bhopal) to spend Diwali, police sources said.
There, the infant developed pneumonia and died on November 4. The elder sister then called her father and brother from Sehore for the last rites. The young woman was then taken to the Samasgarh forests by her father and brother on a bike along with the infant's body. The father asked his son to stay out on the road and took the woman and her son's body inside jungles. In his confession to police, the accused said that he had been on lookout to avenge the honour of the family and once inside the jungles, he again asked his daughter why she had married outside caste and then in a fit of anger had beaten her up, raped and strangled her to death.
Later he told his wife, son and elder daughter about the incident, but they remained silent. It was only after the bodies were recovered that the crime came to light.
One of the major clues to solve the rape-murder case came to the Ratibad police from a complaint of a man who said that someone was harassing him over phone for details of his missing (harasser's) wife and child. Later, it came to light that it was Pradeep who was calling up the number of this complainant for enquiry as it was the last number from which the young woman had talked to Pradeep, police sources said.
Following Pradip’s suicide, his kin said that he had remained disturbed after the incident and was staying alone in Kalapipal as he had separated from his family after his marriage, the SDOP said.
