[VIDEO] Haryana: Cops take action against moral policing mob; locals booked for humiliating couple
Police in Haryana has booked unidentified locals under sections of SC/ST and IPC Act for garlanding a couple with footwear, blackening their faces and parading them through the village while recording the act.
Key Highlights
- Videos of the act are being widely circulated on social media
- The couple was garlanded with footwear and their faces blackened
- Locals have been booked under sections of the IPC, SC/ST and IT Act
Chandigarh: Despite stringent provisions of law to deter the same, caste-based discrimination continues to be a rampant practice in various parts of the country. One such instance has come to light from the state of Haryana where a couple was held hostage and paraded through a village in Karnal district allegedly over their "illicit relationship". Videos of the incident which took place on Wednesday are going viral on social media platforms.
Taking cognisance of the videos, Haryana Police have registered a case against locals under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Information Technology (IT) Act. An officer familiar with the case said that a complaint was made in this regard by the boy. In his written complaint, the boy claimed that he and a local woman were held hostage by local men on Wednesday.
The accused blackened their faces and garlanded them with footwear before parading them through the village, recording the act on their cell phones and circulating them on the internet. Action will be initiated against those identified by name and no one will be spared, said the concerned officer adding that the no one has the right to take the law into his/her own hands. When questioned about the relationship between the man and woman, the officer responded by saying that an investigation into the matter is underway.
In videos of the incident which are being widely circulated on social media, the two can be seen being hounded by locals who continue to harass them even as they are being paraded through the village with garlands of footwear around their necks and black ink on their faces. By no means is this incident an isolated one. In fact, cases such as these have emerged from other parts of the country every now and then.
In Jharkhand's Dumka district, a couple was stripped naked and brutally thrashed before being paraded through the village by locals under the limits of the Saraiyahat police station in June of this year. Acting on a complaint by the couple's kin, police had set up a camp in the village to identify the villagers who inflicted such inhumane behaviour upon the young couple.
Similarly, another couple in Rajasthan's Udaipur district was paraded naked through the village in July of last year allegedly after locals found out that the two had been living together for some number of weeks. The incident was reported from Sare Khurd village in the district under the limits of the Sukher police station. Reports at the time had suggested that the victims were members of the Gameti community.