Villagers of Hareva in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur district stripped five Dalit women before parading them on a highway for four hours after a girl from their community eloped with a boy of the women's caste recently.
The accused -- 10 OBC (other backward caste) people from the village -- also beat up the women black and blue.
Ironically, the shameful incident took place owing to the delay on part of the police in registering a case, when the girl's parents went to report the alleged abduction on 15 May. The UP DGP has ordered an inquiry into the matter, IBN reported on Tuesday.
The Shahjahanpur SP on Monday suspended an inspector and a sub-inspector for the delay in registering an FIR in the case. Accrding to The Times of India, seven of the 10 accused have been arrested so far, which included the father of the girl with whom the OBC boy had eloped.
"After the girl eloped with the boy, there was a delay on the part of these two policemen (inspector Shakti Singh Tomar and in-charge of Halka, sub-inspector Mahipal Singh) in lodging an FIR... They were trying to trace the girl but had not filed the FIR. It aggravated the matter which led the girl's family to retaliate by assaulting the women from the boy's family," Shahjahanpur SP RPS Yadav told TOI.
The girl's family had filed an application on Friday, informing the police of the girl's "abduction", but the FIR was registered only after the girl's family assaulted the five women from the boy's family the next day.
