- Title: Unreported World: Love On The Run (India)
- Date: 19th November 2010
- Summary: As more young couples reject arranged marriages in modern India, Unreported World investigates a wave of violence that's left hundreds dead across the country's northwest states. Reporter Annie Kelly and director Katherine Churcher reveal that, despite Indian law giving everyone the right to marry who they want, increasing numbers of young couples are facing death at the hands of their own families for defying centuries of tradition. Kelly and Churcher begin their journey in Delhi with the Love Commandos, an activist group trying to protect young couples from violence. The team travels with them to the central train station to meet Santosh and Guarav, a young couple on the run. They say they were forced to flee to the capital after Santosh was attacked by her family. They explain that they are from different Hindu castes, which makes their relationship forbidden in the eyes of her village. An estimated 900 people have been killed in honour-related attacks in India in just a year, with the numbers continuing to rise. Kelly and Churcher follow the murder trail to Haryana, the northwest province where many attacks have taken place. They visit the village of Nimiliwali, the scene of a brutal double murder just six weeks earlier. A local man says that two teenagers were beaten then hanged by the girl's family after they discovered their secret relationship. The chief of the village takes the team to the house where they were killed and says their deaths were inevitable because they broke tradition and acted without the consent of the family. The team discovers that families are not always acting alone. They hear allegations that powerful extra-judiciary traditional councils of village elders called Khap Panchayats are also implicated in the murders and may have even ordered killings. Kelly and Churcher attend a regional Khap Panchayat meeting where they learn that the councils are now pressuring the government to enshrine their marriage traditions in national law. Senior Khap Panchayat leaders deny that the councils ever order killings but say that they have other ways of enforcing their rules. Despite the denials, the team tracks down a mother who risked her life to get justice for her murdered son and daughter-in-law. A local Khap Panchayat leader is now serving a life sentence for ordering their killing. Back in Delhi, the team learn that, even in the heart of modern India, families are able to break up forbidden marriages. They meet a young man who has spent over a year fighting to find out what happened to his wife after her family and the police forcibly separated them just six days after they wed. Kelly and Churcher attend the secret wedding of Santosh and Guarav, the couple from the train station. They discover that although this was the day the couple the risked everything for, they are still not safe. After the ceremony they are going back on the run. Despite the continuing murders, young couples are prepared to fight to be together, but falling in love in India can still be a very dangerous business.
- Description:Critically acclaimed foreign affairs series offering an insight into the lives of people in some of the most neglected parts of the planet.
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Documentary and Factual
- Producer:Quicksilver Films Ltd.
- Programme Episode:Episode 18
- Transmission Date:19/11/2010
- Rights:UK and Eire
- Decade: 2010s