Ahmedabad(*17*): In a traumatic incident reported from Gujarat’s Patan district, a lady was tonsured and paraded with her face blackened for eloping with a man. A video of the incident — which is assumed to have happened a few days ago in the district’s Harij town — went viral on social media on Friday, sending shock waves around the state. The local police have arrested at least 17 people, together with a few individuals of the girl’s family.
The viral video showed some other people blackening the girl’s face with soot. Later, the lady could be seen sitting on the ground with her hands tied. A man could be seen cutting off the girl’s hair with a pair of scissors amid a jeering crowd, even as she cried and begged to be spared. After this, she was paraded in the locality with her blackened face and shaved head.
Reports stated that the girl belongs to the Vadi group and she was tormented as part of a ritual to “purify” her following her elopement with a man. Those involved in the incident were her members of the family, neighbours and some members of her neighborhood. On the same day, she was married off to some other man, as per reports.
This comes months after a Dalit man alleged that a mob comprising 40 people, all members of a dominant caste group, assaulted and stripped him sooner than parading him in Sohna village in Haryana’s Gurugram district near Delhi. The man claimed that he was subjected to the brutality as a result of he had helped a 19-year-old rape survivor in lodging a police case against the accused.
Based on the man’s grievance, the Sohna police had lodged a case under sections 506 (legal intimidation), 323 (causing hurt), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapon) 427 (injury), 379A (snatching), 149 (unlawful meeting) of the Indian Penal Code. Relevant charges under the Arms Act had been also been added within the FIR.
