M A I N   N E W S

Valley wakes up to teenager’s honour killing
Budgam girl allegedly murdered by her siblings to save family from ‘disrepute’; accused arrested
Azhar Qadri/TNS

Srinagar, August 28
The Jammu and Kashmir police today claimed to have solved the August 24 blind murder of a teenage girl in the Budgam district. The police said it was a case of “honour killing”— probably the first such incident to be reported in the state — where a brother and his two sisters strangled their eighteen-year-old sibling to death to save their family from disrepute.

Zubaida’s body “bearing visible injury marks” was found in a field outside Parsoo-Sholipora, her native village.

The teen was murdered by her brother Mushtaq Ahmad Dar and two sisters, Nasreen and Misra. All three have been arrested.

SHO of the only woman police station in Kashmir (Ram Bagh), Gulshan, said: “This is the first reported case of honour killing in the state.”

The police said the trio was “angry at Zubaida as the family was facing a lot of humiliation in the society by her deeds”. Zubaida would not stay at home and do things against the family’s wishes, the accused told the police.

“Mushtaq, Nasreen and Misra plotted to eliminate their sister to save their family honour,” said a police official. The plan was prepared by Mushtaq. “Nasreen and Misra took Zubaida to the fields and strangled her with the scarf she was wearing,” said the official.

Investigators are also looking into the possibility of other motives. The police is also probing whether the motive of the murder was “grabbing the Rs 1 lakh ex gratia money” received by Zubaida from the government after her father died in "cross-firing in a militancy related incident" in 1993-94. The amount is due for maturity in 2014, said the police.