In their submission, the leaders of caste councils asked for greater understanding of the pure motives of parents who murder their children for honor. This filing occurs after the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus as she travelled home from the cinema with a friend. There are an estimated 10,000 such honor killings annually in India.
Om Prakash Dhankar, leader of the Sarva Khap Panchayat, insisted that “The honour killings are carried out by law abiding, educated and respectable people, who fear the society and always try to guard their reputation. They always care about their esteem and public image and do not want any harm to their public standing.” He went on to note that “We have many cases of honour killings, where the families were peace loving and law abiding and were liberal towards their children. They later on went to kill their children to save their honour in the society.”
He further warned women not to use cellphones or speak with men if they did not want to be harmed by such decent people: “Our suggestions to women not to use mobile phones, [wear]tight clothing or mingle with the opposite sex is based on ground realities. We are not anti-women and have no intention to curb their freedom but we have seen girls and boys taking to each other at odd times and fixing dates on mobiles, which in many cases have led to rapes We believe that individuals from opposite genders should not mingle too much, if they do, its like sprinkling petrol on fire.”
So all women have to do is not speak on the phone, speak with men, or wear anything that shows their figures to avoid being raped or killed by good decent people?
Source: Telegraph