Honour killing is one of the gender based violence. Honour killing means homicide especially of women or a girl who is perceived to have brought dishonour on the family by marrying a boy of different community or caste against the wishes of family. It is a form of ‘crime of honour’ which deprive women the right to life, liberty and security of person, the right to be free from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, right to equality in the family and right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health which are guaranteed by Constitution of India. The concept of honour killing is motivated by patriarchal principles of the society which refuses to accept any violation of rigid code of decorum. There are number of cases of honour killing were reported in one of the case a girl of 21 years, final year student of Delhi University was murdered by her own parents as because she got married secretly with the boy of a different community. Likely two girls were shot dead by their own cousin in Noida for daring to run away just to meet their boy-friends. India as a State party of CEDAW (Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) is obligated to ensure, elimination of discrimination against women in matters relating to marriage and family relation, to provide women same right to enter in marriage and to choose her spouse freely. But in India UTTAR PRADESH, HARYANA and PUNJAB are marked by poor sex ratio and high incidence of gender equality and honour killing according to the figures compiled by India Democratic Women Association around 900 cases of honour killing are reported in that states whereas 100 to 300 are reported in remaining states of India. But now with other 18 states PUNJAB, UTTAR PRADESH and HARYANA join Centre in fight against honour killing. So far in India no specific law is present on honour killing, but the murder come under the general category of homicide under our penal laws. Now time has come to enact a stringent legislation to deal with this heinous crime.
