Love is not a Crime

Every year in India, at least a thousand young people are murdered by their own families for falling in love with the wrong person. For these lovers, who shun arranged marriages for love matches, there is only one resource they can turn to: the love commandos.

This volunteer organisation is run out of a small room in a congested inner-city Delhi neighbourhood. They have no budget or formal structure – just a stong desire to modernise their country and end the honour killings.

Sapna is 23 and in love with Mazhar, a Muslim student. When her father, a rich Hindu, found out, decided she needed to be punished. She has been beaten, kidnapped, forcibly married and set on fire. Dozens of times, she’s nearly died. She’s lived in the Love Commandos refuge in Delhi for the past four months. It’s too risky for her to leave the shelter but she says she feels happy for the first time and is waiting for her marriage to be dissolve so that she can marry Mazhar.

Bhaskar and Pooja and Kartik and Ashia are also on the run from their families. We follow these three couples over several months and tell their stories. A surprising look at mordern India.