Enraged over the alleged rape of his 14-year-old daughter, a man in Delhi, India, confessed to inviting the perpetrator to dinner for the sole purpose of torturing him to death.

The names of all parties are being withheld while the case goes to trial, but the Indian Express interviewed police involved with the case. According to a recorded confession, the 36-year-old father brought to his home the 45-year-old suspected rapist, a medicine supplier who was married father himself. 

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"The father called the medicine supplier over to his house saying he wanted to discuss some issue. He served him dinner. After the meal, the father overpowered the man and tied him to a chair. He got heated tongs and burned the supplier's genitals before strangling him to death," an officer is quoted.

After the murder, the father then willingly turned himself over to police and gave a detailed account of the killing. The man did not go to police when his daughter told him of the crime for fear of destroying her good name.

However, because there was no trial, or even an officially filed complaint, for the alleged rape, the case is being treated as a premeditated murder. Police officers associated with the case say the man began planning the killing as soon as he found out about the alleged attack, which is said to have occurred two months ago. 

The case is an ironic twist on so-called "honor killings." In India and elsewhere, particularly in the Muslim world, the onus of responsibility in rape cases often falls on the victim, who is blamed for enticing the rapist or rapists to attack.

Rather than risking the dishonor associated with a "fallen woman," families often kill the victim, sometimes just a child, rather than report the crime or stand up against the idea the victim is at fault rather than the rapist or society. Bodies are often left unburied without funeral rites.

Honor killings are not restricted to rape cases or even to women; in 2008, Ahmet Yildiz, a gay man, was shot and killed in an Istanbul city street. His friends allege the Yildiz family, which did not take responsibility for Ahmet's body or funeral, was behind the act.

TagsRape, honor killing, Torture, Murder