CHANDIGARH: Barbaric killing in the name of honour took two innocent lives in a village near Banur in Patiala district. A couple was allegedly murdered by the girl's brother, their only fault they loved each other but belonged to different castes. The killer is reported to be absconding.

Sources said Salwinder Kaur, a Dalit from Gajjukhera village, had fallen in love with Suresh Kumar, a Khatri boy, of the same village two years back.

On Saturday evening the girl's brother Sarabjit allegedly axed both of them to death.

'' They were four to five people, they attacked both of them and after that fled,'' says Gurdail Ram, father of Suresh.

The case had gone to court. The High Court had provided the couple a security guard. But at the time of attack he wasn't there. Police teams are on the look out for Sarabjit.

'' He is from a neighbouring village and he is absconding. We are looking for him. We will get him soon,'' says Narjinder Singh Sekhon, S P Patiala.

The couple's gruesome killing once again points to the grim reality that tolerance for inter-caste marriages in rural Punjab is still very low.