Taking a serious note of the honour killing incident at Garnavathi village in Rohtak on Wednesday, the khap panchayats active in Jhajjar region have decided to resume its campaign for mounting pressure on the State Government to get the amendment in Hindu Marriage Act 1955 done in order to prevent honour killings in the State. A meeting of various khap panchayats has been convened at Chhotu Ram Dharamshala in Jhajjar on September 21 to decide further course of action in the direction of getting their long-pending demand met. Om Prakash Dhankhar, chief of Dhankhar Sabha, told The Pioneer over phone that besides representatives of different social outfits, office bearers of 12 khaps here would attend the meeting to present their suggestions over the issue.
“Though a case regarding amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 is pending before the Supreme Court, the state government has authority to amend the act at state level as per its prevalent social custom because such sort of action has already been taken in Karnataka, Pondicherry, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab states,” said Dhankhar. He maintained that amendment in the act was instantly required to curb the barbaric incident of honour killings in Haryana.
“Amendment in the marriage Act is essential as it does not prohibit the weddings within same gotra and village while the century-old social custom does not allow weddings within same gotra and village as the people of same gotra and village belong to same clan and maintain brotherhood as per the social customs hence marriages within gotra and villages are forbidden,” said the khap leader, adding that even medical science also did not support marriages in the same Gotra.
In reply to a question about honour killing, Dhankhar made it clear that the khaps had no link with the rising incidents of honour killing in the state.
The khaps neither endorse killing of couples for the sake of protecting family honour nor ever pronounce any verdict of death penalty on anyone, he added. The khap leader maintained that decisions of the Saturday’s meeting would be placed before a mahapanchayat of all khaps for further action. Date of the mahapanchayat would be fixed later, he added.