'We have not arrested anyone till now but we are interrogating villagers to ascertain the identity of the accused. We expect to arrest the culprits soon,' Balan added.

The village is about 160 km from state capital Chandigarh and lies in the dominant Jat belt of the state.

Police had registered a case against the girl's parents and some unknown villagers Thursday.

The villagers did not allow anyone to take the body of the victim till late Wednesday night and displayed it at the village crossing.

The killing of Ved Pal came even as the administration in another Haryana district, Jhajjar, was grappling with a case of a village council (panchayat) ordering the ouster of a family of a young couple in Dharana village who also married within the same gotra.

So-called honour killings are not new in Haryana, especially in areas dominated by the Jat community.

In June 2007, the bodies of a young couple, Manoj and Babli, were recovered from a canal in Kaithal district after they were murdered and thrown into the canal by relatives of the girl.

In Karnal district last year, Jasbir Singh, 27, and his companion Sunita, who was six months pregnant, were murdered after being strangled in their village. The girl's family was opposed to their daughter, a divorcee, living with Jasbir.

The family threw the bodies of the couple outside their house to send a message to other villagers that going against the wishes of the community and family would not be tolerated.