One-sided love, parents' indifference, social isolation drive crimes of passion

One sided love, deprivation, indifferent attitude of the guardians lead to the love centric killings in most cases, said experts.

Social scientists and activists predicting an increase in love centric killings in the future said that parents and guardians must be more careful about their children and try to resolve their issues at the very beginning.

In a gruesome case in Tripura's Dhalai district in November last year, a teenaged boy killed four members of his family, including his mother and 10-year-old sister claiming that his parents loved and favoured his sister and ignored him in all matters.

The police arrested the 15-year-old boy for killing his grandfather Badal Debnath (70), mother Samita Debnath (32), 10-year old sister, and aunt Rekha Deb (42) with an axe when the victims were asleep.

According to the police, after killing the four, the boy buried three bodies in an under construction septic tank behind his home.

He told the police that his father Hradhan Debnath (a bus conductor) and mother always loved his sister but did not like him.

The official quoting his father and neighbours said that the boy was a computer games addict and often stole money from his home for online gaming.

During the midnight murders, the boy played music at high volume to prevent the cries of the victims from being heard by the neighbours.

Last month, a 20-year-old student was kidnapped when she was returning from her college on the outskirts of Agartala.

Later, the police arrested Gautam Sharma, the prime accused in the case, and three others including the driver of the vehicle in which the crime was committed while a hunt is still on to nab the remaining accused person named Prasenjit Paul.

Cash to the tune of Rs 93 lakh has been seized from the house of Paul, who managed to flee before the raiding party reached his home.

According to the police, the victim was found at an abandoned place along the bypass road on the outskirts of Agartala after many hours of the crime and was taken to a hospital.

Police said that the main accused Gautam Sharma loved the girl but she was reluctant to maintain the relationship.

In another case, the District and Session Judge of West Tripura District Subhashish Sharma Roy on June 3 sentenced Sumit Bank, Sumit Chowdhury, Sukanta Biswas and Sayed Mia to life imprisonment for murdering their friend and bank official Bodhisatta Das on the intervening night of August 3-4, 2019.

The four killed Das in Agartala after an argument over urinating in the roadside. Both the victim and the accused were apparently in a drunken state.

On September 11 last year, in a remote tea garden area at Koilamari Balijan in eastern Assam's Lakhimpur district, the body of a tribal youth -- Biki Bishal (20) -- was found hanging from a tree after the victim was allegedly called by someone from his girlfriend's family to her village.

Bishal's family members and the local people claimed that he was found with multiple injuries and they alleged that he was killed for not agreeing to convert to Christianity in order to marry his tribal girlfriend.

"Bishal was killed and then hanged since there was pressure on him to convert to his girlfriend's religion if he wished to marry her," a family member of the victim told the police.

According to Bishal's family a week before his death, on September 3, he had eloped with his girlfriend and had brought her home. Both are from the same Adivasi community, but Bishal was a Hindu and his girlfriend is a Christian.

On September 6, the girl's family members, accompanied by some church officials, came to Bishal's house and allegedly took the girl away against her will.

The police have arrested five people in connection with the case. The detainees include Bishal's girlfriend's father, two relatives and two officials of a local church.

The family members and villagers protested outside the police station demanding justice for Bishal's family.

In February this year, a 32-year-old man from Assam's Cachar district was arrested from Manipur's Jiribam district for allegedly killing his girlfriend with a sharp object in the Chengkoorie area near southern Assam's Silchar town.

According to the police Amar Sinha, a private bank employee, brutally killed the 20-year-old girl after calling the victim to a paddy field in broad daylight.

Academician and social scientist Manimay Roy felt that such love centric crimes and killings cannot be curbed by the police or the law enforcing agencies alone and a holistic approach is required to deal with such issues.

"Parents, guardians and close relatives must be practical and proactive in such happenings and these should be efficiently tackled at the initial stage. Regular and effective counselling by a psychiatric or a close relative is required before the matter becomes serious," Roy told IANS.

He said that to deal with such crimes and violent incidents, friends and close relatives can also be involved while efforts must be made to remove depression, if any, among the boys and girls.

According to experts, sometimes drugs and addiction cause such love centric crimes.

Security expert Manas Paul said that the police or any law enforcement wing or for that matter any social agency cannot really stop a murder if it is being planned by a determined individual for his or her personal or family reasons or in a fit of rage.

"When a minor or a teenager commits crimes under the influence of drugs then the matter gets more complicated. It is not then only a crime at the individual level but it also reflects a deeper malaise which needs to be addressed with a holistic approach involving law enforcers, medical fraternity and several other social, administrative units, NGOs, educational institutions etc."

Talking to IANS, Paul said that it has to be kept in mind that a drug addict is per se not a criminal but a victim of the drug cartels and rackets.

Paul said that since overuse of narcotics transforms and pushes the young minds into a dark tunnel like situation, it becomes all the more complex and requires immediate initiatives from all concerned.