India, Aug. 25 -- Indomitable, courageous, dogged. These are just some of the adjectives you will run into when reading about Nilam Katara, the now 73-year-old retired school teacher, who has fought a long battle to ensure justice for the murder of her son, Nitish, a 24-year-old business executive. Nitish was killed in 2002 by his girlfriend Bharti's brother Vikas Yadav, cousin Vishal Yadav and a contract killer, Sukhdev Pehalwan.

The trial court and high court called it an honour killing. The Yadavs disapproved of Bharti's relationship with a man not of their caste or socio-economic status. "It was their patriarchal mindset. They thought, 'How dare our sister think of getting married without our permission'?" Nilam says.

On the night o...