Father, Uncle Held in 'Honor Killing' of Indian Couple

(June 15) -- The father and uncle of a 19-year-old woman have been arrested for what Indian police say was the honor killing of the teen and her boyfriend.

Police in Delhi, India, say Asha Saini and her boyfriend, Yogesh Kumar, were tortured and then electrocuted. After the arrests, the uncle was quoted as saying he had no regrets.

"My brother killed them. I have no regrets whatsoever," Om Prakash told reporters as he was led away by police, the Indian news website Sify reported. "The boy's family was opposed to the match and told us to get her married off to whoever we want to."

The boyfriend's older sister, Renu Kumar, told Sify, "Asha wanted to marry my brother, but her family forcibly fixed her marriage to somebody else. On an earlier occasion, her mother had come to our place and threatened dire consequences if Yogesh did not stop meeting her."

According to the police, the young woman's family disapproved of the relationship because the two came from different castes, the BBC reported. In Hindu society, different castes are divided into different social groups, and a higher-caste member marrying someone from a lower group is often seen as bringing disgrace upon the high-caste member's family.

The bodies of the two, who had been beaten with metal rods before being electrocuted, were discovered Monday after neighbors reported smells coming from the uncle's house in Delhi.

"When we found the bodies, the couple's legs and hands were tied and they were bleeding," Delhi's deputy police commissioner, N.S. Bundela, said at a news conference today. He added that three other people were suspects: the woman's cousin, her aunt and her mother.

Although honor killings are reportedly rare in the Indian capital, they are common in parts of northern India, according to the BBC.

The police said Asha's father, Suresh Kumar Saini, and other family members feared she was about to elope with her boyfriend, so they invited him to their home on Sunday.

According to a report in the Hindustan Times quoted by the BBC, police said the two were beaten for hours before being electrocuted by being forced to sit on iron trunks attached to live wires.

"This is a barbaric act of violence and should be condemned," Delhi's women and child development minister, Kiran Walia, was reported as saying. "It is my duty to get the perpetrators punished."