A 23-year-old old woman identified as S Dhanya was hacked to death in India on Wednesday after rejecting a marriage proposal from a 27-year-old mill worker.
The murderer was known to the family and had known Dhanya for more than a year and asked for her hand in marriage. According to India’s NDTV, she rejected him because she was engaged to someone else. The woman “was alone at home when Zahir allegedly entered through the rear door of the house and attacked her with a sickle after she refused her [sic] advances. Her parents had gone out for shopping and had locked the front door, police said.”
Following the attack, the alleged killer – identified only as “Zahir” – attempted to commit suicide by ingesting poison. His attempt to kill himself was unsuccessful, and he was taken to the hospital, where he is currently in the intensive care unit. Police are waiting until he is out of ICU before they arrest him, but they have already registered the murder charge.
NDTV points out that attacks like these are becoming increasingly frequent. Last month, NDTV reports, “A 24-year-old teacher, N Francina was clubbed to death inside a church.” Before that, “24-year-old Swathi, employed with software giant Infosys, was hacked to death around 6.30 am on June 24 while waiting to board a train at Nungambakkam Railway Station to her workplace on the city outskirts.”
Violent attacks in India on both men and women, but more predominantly on women, have become more frequent in the past year. Breitbart News reported in March, “Brothers in India burned their sister alive after she married a man in a different caste (social class) in the nation’s most recent honor killing.”
Breitbart News also reported that violent attacks on women in India are prompting the government to take action, but in policing the women’s behavior, not the men’s: “The Indian government has warned female travelers not to wear skirts ‘for their own safety’ as they travel to and around the country.”