Sonepat man fears for dead son’s teen widow

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 26

It is the heaviest weight a father can carry, his dead son’s body, but 60-year-old Om Prakash of Sonepat’s Gopalpur village has more pressing matters to deal with than the grief of losing his son -- the fate of his teenage daughter-in-law Kiran.

“I can’t keep her in my house because villagers will take an offence. She has nowhere to go. Once she is out of hospital, only misery awaits her. If she succumbs to her bullet wounds, I worry who will cremate her. I can’t do that because for villagers it would mean that I accepted her as my daughter-in-law,” the father said, admitting that his hands were tied due to social pressure.

Kiran, all of 19, was widowed after Vinay died of gunshot wounds on June 24 when her family members tracked them down to New Delhi’s Amberhai village in Dwarka and opened fire for marrying despite being from the same village and gotra.

While the 24-year-old boy died on the spot, Kiran sustained injuries and was admitted to hospital. “She is stable, but still unfit to record her statement,” Dwarka DCP Santosh Kumar Meena said.

Vinay’s body was brought to the village and cremated amid heavy police deployment. Talking to The Tribune over the phone, Om Prakash said, “I met Kiran in the hospital. When I told her that Vinay is dead, she said she didn’t want to live without him.”

Om Prakash recalled the last conversation he had with Vinay. “Earlier this month, he called up from an unknown number. I told him that he had brought disgrace to the family by eloping with a girl of the same gotra. I told him he had put his life in danger and he should leave us to our fate,” the father said.

He said he never expected the girl’s family to be vengeful enough to try to kill couple. “The girl’s parents had filed a kidnapping case against my son. I had snapped all ties with him, although he was in touch with his mother. In the last call he made to her, he told her how Kiran had a miscarriage but was doing fine,” the father said.

Earlier, the panchayat had barred the couple from returning to the village for marrying against the social norms.