Hyderabad: Teen’s death brings dagger dance peril under lens

This is the third incident in the city in the past six months, where a marfa show at a wedding went awry. In the earlier instances, the victims escaped with injuries.

“Syed Hameed went with his cousin Mohammed Junaid, 19, who was hired to perform the dagger dance. During the dance, people started throwing money at Junaid. While Junaid was dancing, Hameed moved close to him. Junaid failed to notice him and the dagger sliced Hameed’s throat,” Inspector Ram Babu said. After Hameed’s parents lodged a police complaint at Raidurgam police station, Junaid was arrested.

The incident has brought under the spotlight a recent trend of hiring sword and dagger performers at weddings.

Police said that besides crackers and band baaja, it is becoming common to hire performers in Muslim weddings, adding that this trend has become a cause of worry. “Youths working in the Gulf come home to get married and want Arab-style celebrations with dagger dances. It is a matter of prestige,” an official of South Zone of Hyderabad police said.

As West Zone police started probing Hameed’s death, more than a dozen videos of dagger dances in recent marriages surfaced. “It has become part of the ‘baarat’. The dancers are hired for as less as Rs 2,000 for a show lasting a couple of hours,” an official said.

Officials said youths performing “marfa” have little experience in handling the double-edged daggers and mostly try to emulate Arab performers in videos they see on the Internet, they said. As the daggers used are shorter than nine inches, police cannot lodge cases under Arms Act, said police.

Last July, as incidents of celebratory gunfire were reported, police sent warning letters to gun licence holders against display or use of arms during celebrations. “We issued notices to owners of marriage halls. This dagger dance is a new menace now,” South Zone DCP V Satyanarayana said.