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Govt counsel asks HC to shut
case, forgets to say petitioner was murdered
WSN Network
CHANDIGARH: A
young couple wanted to and then got married, but both came from
different castes. They feared attacks and therefore had asked for
protection. Despite that, the young man was killed. Instead of
proceeding against the killers, and notwithstanding India's home
minister's recent statement that he has to hang his head in shame
because of honor killings, this is what the police in
India's
Haryana state was quick to do.
Within days of
an uproar over a khap (caste) panchayat lynching the youth, Haryana
government asked the Punjab and Haryana High Court to close
proceedings saying the petitioner, Ved Pal Mor, who wanted his life
and liberty protected, was no more.
During the
resumed hearing on a habeas petition filed by Ved while seeking
custody of his wife from her parents, the government counsel on
Thursday did not mention that he was murdered in the presence of
police. He simply forgot to tell that the petitioner had not expired
but in fact was brutally murdered.
The state
counsel pleaded that Ved’s petition be dismissed on the ground that
he was no more. Petitioner’s counsel rejected his contention
outright, saying the matter involved the lynching of a person by an
organized social group and it was very much in the knowledge of
local police authorities. Shockingly, the government counsel had the
nerve to ask the court to close the case even when the petitioner
was killed while he was being accompanied by the warrant officer of
court and was thus under the protection of the court. The trial is
still continuing.
5
August 2009
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