The 19-year-old woman in the northern state of Haryana confessed to mixing a lethal intoxicant in food she served to the family and aided by her lover strangled the unconscious parents, grandmother, brother and three cousins.

"We have arrested the girl and her boyfriend for killing seven people," senior police officer Anil Kumar Rao told AFP from the town of Rohtak.

Rao said that the young woman admitted that she hated her family for opposing her love affair on the grounds of India's strict caste system.

The couple hail from the same caste and were prohibited to marry under guidelines enforced by a village social council.

"The two feared that they could be badly beaten or even killed for ignoring caste and social dictum, so they decided to kill the family before eloping to get married," Rao said.

Marriages between the same caste is forbidden in Haryana, an affluent but conservative state.

Police say they are overwhelmed by hundreds of cases in which couples have been attacked by enraged relatives for ignoring the strict social codes that dictate who they should marry.

AFP

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