A jailed boy,a missing girl and 3 deaths in her unwanted family

His arrest turned Hisar village against her family,they drink poison

It began with an elopement two years ago from Behri Akbarpur village,the girl then underage. The chain of events it sparked has left three members of her family dead and one battling for life,while her father has survived what police call a suicide attempt. The girl,who had been brought home immediately after the elopement,disappeared a month later and remains missing. And the boy is in jail.

On Monday,villagers found the girls parents of three siblings lying on the ground in their home. Mahender,41,his wife Babli,38,had mixed insecticide in the halwa prepared for the familys dinner,Hisar police said. Mahender survived but the poison killed Babli and her children Usha,13,and Sanjay,9,while Rajesh,11,is critical.

The girl who eloped,16 then,is the eldest of Mahenders four children. The boy wasnt underage and eventually arrested for rape,something that turned the village against the girls family. Villagers held the girl and her family at fault,felt the boy didnt deserve to be jailed,and reportedly shunned the family. They now say they wont allow Mahender to return.

In May 2011,Mahender had returned home from the fields one day and found his eldest daughter wasnt home. Mahender found out that she had eloped with a boy named Rohtash and gone to his home in a neighbouring village, said Daya,Mahenders uncle. Mahender brought her home and registered a police complaint against Rohtash.

When the police questioned them,the two confessed that they had had a physical relationship, said S S Kapoor,IG,Hisar. Since she was a minor,there was no choice but to arrest Rohtash for rape. He was not a minor. A chargesheet was filed within a month,and he was sent to prison.

What Mahender did was unacceptable, said Rajesh Singh,a villager. First,he let his girl go out of hand,and she eloped with a boy without marrying him first. Its the girls family that is responsible for preventing such things. But Mahender made it worse. He registered a police complaint,and sent a boy to jail. What was his fault?

In June 2011,the girl went missing. Relatives said the family went to the Uklana tehsil police station that very month. The police didnt take the matter seriously, Daya said. The police registered a missing persons report in February 2012. In June 2011,the police had made a DD entry on the request of her family, an officer said. It is true that the missing persons report was registered only in February 2012.

Story continues below this ad

The whole village believes the girl ran away,unable to bear the taunts that her lover was in jail,and the taunts about rape, Daya said. In the one month she was home,she never spoke to her father.

Since the girls disappearance,Daya said,Mahender was constantly questioned by the police and shunned by the village. Mahender had said he wanted to kill himself,but his wife talked him out of it. At some point,maybe she couldnt bear it either,so they took this step, Daya said.

Police conceded there are very few leads to the missing girl. It is possible she ran away because of societal pressure. The worst possibility is she is dead,victim of an honour killing. But it is unlikely that she has been killed by the family of the jailed boy, an officer said.

The police describe the deaths as the result of murder and suicide,not a suicide pact. It may be an extremely unfortunate incident,but it is not a suicide pact. The parents didnt tell the children what they had put in the halwa, said Kapoor.

Story continues below this ad

In the village,the anger against Mahender persists. He will not be allowed to live here. He was a bad parent,sent an innocent man to jail,and has now killed his family, a village elder said.