16, Sep 2015

Wednesday, 16 September 2015 | PNS | New Delhi
The Supreme Court on Tuesday summoned two officials of the Uttar Pradesh Police, including the Superintendent of Police, Baghpat for their failure to protect a Dalit family facing an unholy diktat by a local khap Panchayat pronouncing rape on their two daughters. The order was passed after the family’s son eloped with an upper caste girl in the village.
The aggrieved family along with their daughters, who were forced to seek shelter in Delhi, appeared in the Apex Court on Tuesday and held long discussion with the judges inside chambers to explain their plight. The family’s lawyer who was also part of the meeting stepped out and told mediapersons that the Court had summoned the SHO and Superintendent of Police, Baghpat to appear in Court on Wednesday.
The family told the judges that ever since their son eloped with a Jat girl, the village virtually turned against them with even the police siding with the Jat leaders. A khap Panchayat was called to pronounce punishment on the boy for his crime. The Panchayat’s humiliating diktat made the family’s two daughters pay the price for their son’s mistake. They were ordered to be raped and paraded naked through the village. As for the boy, the police arrested him in a narcotics case and kept him in custody.