Noida 'honour killing': A blue dupatta for a wedding and a strangulation

Neha Rathore, 23, wrote her father's and her name on the blue plastic entry door to their home, drawing flowers around it with chalk. A few weeks later, Neha was killed inside the house located in Bhangi mohalla (neighbourhood) of Uttar Pradesh’s Greater Noida, allegedly by her father, Bhanu Rathore, 40; and her brother Himanshu, 19. On March 12, around 5.30 a.m., her family hurriedly cremated her, allegedly burning all the clothes she owned. The day before her death, she had married her boyfriend Suraj at an Arya Samaj temple.

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Neha was from the Teli community; her husband of a few hours was from the Jat community —an inter-caste marriage often frowned upon across India. She was strangled with the same blue dupatta she had worn for her wedding.

The Uttar Pradesh police have registered a case at Bisrakh police station under BNS sections 103 (murder) and 238 (destruction of evidence). Across north India, ‘honour killings’ are a subset of the crime against couples who choose to break with the tradition of marrying within their caste. Earlier in March this year, Balram, 20, and Srishti, 19, were allegedly killed by Srishti’s parents in Baghpat in 2025, because they were from different communities. In 2024, a man allegedly murdered his 18-year-old daughter right outside their house with an axe in Bahraich, because he felt she had ruined his reputation. In Gurugram, Haryana, Anjali, 22, was allegedly strangled to death by her parents and brother, for marrying a man from another caste, against her family’s wishes in 2023.A house in the back lanes