A young Dalit woman has moved the Supreme Court seeking protection after a khap panchayat issued an order to rape her and her sister as their brother eloped with a married girl from the Jat community.
"On July 30, the Jat community held a khap panchayat and decided to avenge the dishonour. The petitioner has been condemned to be raped and paraded naked after blackening their faces only because her brother fell in love and eloped with her friend. The family can never return," the petitioner's – Dalit woman – lawyer Vivek Singh told Hindustan Times.
The petitioner, a 23-year-old resident of a village in Baghpat district, has also accused the state police of acting against her family. She has alleged that the police have implicated her brother in a false case on the orders of the Jat community in the village.
Based on her appeal, the SC bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar has issued a notice to the state police and has also asked them to respond to the petitioner's plea seeking CBI probe into the entire incident.
The petitioner's brother and the girl from Jat community were in love for the last three years, but the girl was forcibly married off to a Jat boy in February this year. A month after the marriage, the girl eloped with the petioner's brother but they had to return due to the pressure from the girl's family and the UP police.
The girl was then sent to her parents' house, while the Dalit boy was implicated in a false narcotics case and arrested, alleged the petitioner. He was later granted bail by a local court but instead of returning to their village to secure his release documents, the Dalit family moved to Delhi fearing further implications.
Even as the Dalit family has taken shelter in Delhi, the Jat community has allegedly taken over their house in the village.
