It was indeed bizarre as a woman was
partially stripped naked and paraded on a donkey through her village in
northern India after being accused of killing her nephew, police said Monday.
Members of the village also
blackened her face with coal dust and cut her hair following orders from a
local council of elders in Rajasthan, the police officer said.
Thirty nine people, mostly members
of the village in Rajsamand district, have been arrested over the incident that
took place on Saturday night, additional superintendent of police Sudhir Joshi
said.
The woman was accused by the village
council of killing her nephew who had died some time earlier, the officer said.
“The woman aged around 40 years was
in her house when some villagers stormed into the house and pulled her out on
Saturday evening,” Joshi told AFP.
“They cut her hair, blackened her
face and stripped her half naked. Then they mounted her on a donkey and paraded
her in the village for ten minutes,” he said.
“It was after a meeting of the
panchayat (village elders). The cruel punishment was meted out to the woman
just on a suspicion,” he said.
The woman was now being cared for by
family members, the officer added.
Councils made up of village elders,
usually known as “khap panchayats”, are common in rural parts of India,
especially in the north, where they are often accused of dispensing
“Taliban-style justice”.
Their diktats are often
unconstitutional and illegal, but they continue to hold sway with rules seen as
regressive by women’s rights activists.
In September this year, 13 men were
jailed in West Bengal state for gang-raping a woman who was accused by the
local council of “dishonouring” her village.
The council ordered the attack
against the 20-year-old woman for the perceived offence of having a
relationship with a man from a different community.
Bizarre As India woman stripped, paraded on donkey as punishment
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Monday, November 10, 2014
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