Punjabis, who are internationally acknowledged as the best entrepreneurs and as people who are fun-loving, hardworking, trustworthy and brave, today carry the stigma of having the lowest sex ratio in the country. Punjabis are known to come to the rescue of anyone in trouble, but they are refusing to save their girls, who are being killed in the womb or as an infant or as a bride. Here are some of the cases of killing of girls:

1. One Jagir Kaur and an Assistant Manager in the FCI are accused of killing their daughters solely because the latter chose to marry men of their own choice. Both are accused of having committed murder simply because the boys their daughters chose did not belong to their caste. This obsession with their clan and caste refuses to leave Punjabis even though Sikhism preaches against casteism.

2. Three Punjabi NRI parents hired killers to kill their daughters as well as the boys whom they had married against their wishes. In these cases, the girls had not married boys out of their caste. Hence, the killings of the daughters were ordered apparently to assuage their ego and prestige that was injured because the daughters had dared to make their own choice. The concept of supari killing, once totally alien to Punjabis, has entered the state, thanks to NRI money. The supari killings in the rest of the world and specifically in Mumbai are usually carried out to settle disputes related to money, land and property. But Punjabis have taken the lead in using this method of killing to get rid of their daughters.

3. The highest number of brides is killed in Punjab, with Andhra Pradesh as the close second. Apparently, Punjabis have introduced the most brutal methods of killing daughters-in-law. They either burn her alive or poison her food or physically assault her. These widely reported methods have been picked up by other states as well.

I fail to fathom why Punjabis, who are so protective towards their women, suffer from this paradoxical swing against them. When cases of dowry deaths, foeticide, infanticide are reported from the rural areas, I often console myself with the thought that ignorance and lack of education and awareness must be the root cause. But when someone like Jagir Kaur, who has studied in Government College for Girls, Chandigarh, commits such a heinous act, I find it hard to come to terms with it. Doesn’t one grow out of casteism by receiving education in a progressive and modern city.

However, the case of Rattandeep Kaur, whose father Harmit Singh Gujral has confessed to the police that he had stabbed his daughter, is most shocking in these modern times. Her body had 14 stab wounds and the room was full of bloodstains as per the pictures that appeared in newspapers. The physical cruelty that the father indulged in against his daughter in the presence of an adult son, wife and a minor son is a pointer to the fact that none of them came to the rescue of the victim. The natural reflex system of anybody would have been to save the girl but by mutely watching the crime being committed they have bared that they too felt that she asked for it.

Harmit Singh and his family are educated people and as per reports are religious and regularly visit the gurdwara. The Sikh religion not only preaches that no human being has any right to take anybody’s life but also says dukh na dein kise jeev, pat seon ghar jaoon (Do not cause pain to anyone, one has to go to the Lord’s house without guilt or stigma).

The Guru Granth Sahib says: "Kabir zore kiya, so zulum hai, le jawab khudaiye." (Kabir it is an atrocity to commit excess, God will seek an answer).

"Jo rat pivey mansa, tin kyon nirmal cheet." (One who kills a human being, his mind cannot be pure and at peace).

Apparently, neither education nor religion helped the couple to allow their daughter to select a boy of her choice as her companion of life. Acting totally against their religion, they not only tortured her mentally and physically but also signed her death warrant. Rattandeep, as it appears, believed in the assurance given by her parents to her husband that they would allow him to live with their daughter if he started his own business. But they breached her trust much before the boy could fulfil the task given to him.

Now have a look at another case, wherein Sunanda Arora had called her parents and said that her in-laws and husband had poisoned her. By the time her parents reached her marital home, her condition was critical. But before death caught up with her, Sunanda gave a dying statement to the doctors and the police. The end result is that the district courts have sentenced to life imprisonment her father-in-law, Nanak Singh Arora (former SDM, Ambala) and her husband, Sanjay Arora.

This case is similar to that of the Gujrals’. Not only did Sunanda’s father-in-law enjoy a powerful position as a bureaucrat but his son too was a well-educated person. This family, too, was religious. Yet, neither religion nor education nor exposure to urban life helped them to respect the life of their daughter-in-law.

All such hair-raising acts raise a question: Why is there a lack of social support system for these hapless girls. In all the aforesaid cases, the girls had no one with whom they could discuss their fears, apprehensions and tribulations except their own parents, who were either opposed to them or feared societal ridicule. Unfailingly, in dowry deaths, the girls’ parents talk about the dowry demands, mental and physical harassment only when the girls are already dead.

It is quite evident that that these parents need counselling, which has to be radical and must challenge some accepted social customs. Such parents need consistent and specialised counselling to enable them to take steps that would save the lives of their daughters. Also such parents have to be made to understand that there is no point in trying to save a marriage that might take the life of their daughter.

Similarly, the girls who chose to marry against the wishes of their parents also need to be protected and guided. There is no denying the fact that there are times when the girls are misled by unscrupulous characters. But the cases of Rattandeep and Jagir Kaur’s daughter, Harpreet Kaur, certainly did not fall in this category. Yet, they had to lose their lives. It is quite obvious that Punjab desperately needs well-meaning NGOs to come to the rescue of such girls. If only Rattandeep and Harpreet Kaur were in the custody of some NGO then their parents would not have been able to take their lives.