Eight beheaded in India

RELIGION/SEX - Eight members of a man's poverty-ridden family were shot and beheaded and their bodies were thrown into a river in eastern India after he secretly married a wealthy girl, Indian police said yesterday.

Police in the eastern state of Bihar found the eight bodies floating in a river and have charged 15 people, mostly from the girl's family, with the killings.

The weekend killings took place after 21-year-old Ratan Mandal and 18-year-old Kanchan Kumari got married in secret, afraid their families would not approve because of an old social rivalry.

"The girl's family invited the boy's family for a meeting on the pretext of settling the dispute, but killed all eight and beheaded them," says a senior police officer from Bhagalpur, where the incident took place.

Bhagalpur, one of India's most lawless regions, has been notorious for revenge killings. Men and women have been killed in the villages of eastern and northern India for marrying outside their caste or against their families' wishes.

Last May, a young couple was killed by the girl's family in northern India for marrying within the same village.