India's Romeo and Juliet tragedy

Two star-crossed lovers committed suicide after the local village council, or panchayat, ordered them to annul their marriage or face death.

Amreen was Muslim and her husband, Lokesh, a Hindu. Their match was simply unacceptable to their communities. The couple poisoned themselves.

To find out more, we headed east from Delhi into the north Indian countryside.

A little more than two hours later, we found ourselves in the village of Phaphunda.

[The pair] should have stayed away and lived in the city Achan Singh, village council head

Like most others in the area, it was small and unremarkable.

The villagers, mostly farmers, live in houses built close to each other, with narrow lanes running through them. Horse-carts and cattle amble along - Delhi seems far away.

Attitudes here can be unforgiving. I headed first to the house of the village chief, Achan Singh, who heads the village council.

A tall, well-built man in his 40s, he was very welcoming, pouring out steaming cups of tea as we sat on his carpet.

Yes, he had heard about the incident but no it was not his panchayat that had anything to do with it.

"It was a gathering of elders from the two families," he told me.

"The boy and girl were told that their marriage would not be allowed. They would have to leave each other or else they would be killed," he said in a matter of fact way.

Pressed further, Mr Singh sympathised with the couple but said they had made a fatal mistake.

"You see, they fell in love and then ran away to get married. They should have stayed away and lived in the city.

"In our village, Hindus marry Hindus and Muslims marry Muslims. It's very sad, what happened but what can you expect? The pressure on their families was enormous. They were being disgraced and dishonoured."