By IANS,
Lucknow : Unwilling to accept their love affair, an Uttar Pradesh village panchayat forced a woman to slap her lover with shoes and tonsure his head. Later, after blackening the man’s face, the panchayat paraded him semi-naked through various localities in the village, police said Thursday.
The order came Wednesday from the panchayat of Aaldi village in Muzaffarnagar, about 350 km from Lucknow, where the 22-year-old woman was forced to abuse her 26-year-old lover in full public view.
“Some elders caught the couple together talking and roaming in an orchard of the village and informed the panchayat members, who directed the family members of the woman to produce their daughter before the panchayat,” Prem Saini, a resident of Aaldi village, told reporters Thursday.
“When the panchayat was about to deliver the punishment to the woman, her lover appeared before the panchayat and pleaded not to ill treat the woman. To this, the panchayat agreed on the condition that the woman would have to slap him five times with shoes and also shave his head,” added Saini.
According to locals, when the woman objected to the condition, the panchayat members announced that if she failed to act as per the directions, her lover would be forced out of the village along with his family. Hearing this, the woman agreed and ill-treated her lover.
Police inspector Amar Deep Lal told IANS: “The incident has come to light with the help of local journalists. We have initiated an enquiry into the matter and action would be taken against all those who forced the woman to ill-treat her lover.”