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Dalit Woman tonsured, beaten up in UP |
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Tuesday, 30 November 1999 |
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In a bizarre incident, a mother of six was tied to a pole, whipped, assaulted and then tonsured before the public in Khalilpur village of Bijnore district in Uttar Pradesh after the village panchayat found her guilty of immoral conduct following a complaint made by her relatives.
The police registered a FIR and arrested two persons who identified the victim as Prabha (35), wife of Raju, a rickshaw-puller. After Prabha had gone to stay with another person in the same village, her cousins Guddi and Shanti took her to the village pradhan. They cut off her hair while Dhyan Singh and Shaupal tied her to a pole and whipped her.
The Police officials admitted that there was an increase in violence against women. They said only education could solve the problem. "There exists hardly any other mechanism to curb this evil. The police can act as a deterrent, but then there have to be socially conscious individuals around panchayats to bring such instances to the notice of the local police," said Rajiv Ranjan Verma, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Meerut. A woman IPS officer in the state capital wondered, “In all the three incidents, the girls were asked to go with the accused. Why weren’t any of the men made to bear the punishment even by chance?" |
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