Haryana caste council firm on family’s expulsion from village

By IANS,

Jhajjar (Haryana): The tension after a marriage, ruled to be violating social norms as the husband and wife were from “related clans”, continues as the Kadyan khap panchayat (caste council) has refused to budge from its stand of ousting the boy’s family from their village in Haryana.


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The caste council has now called ‘sarva khap panchayat’ (all caste council) at Beri town, some 20 km from here, Sunday to decide the final course of action.

“Over 30 representatives of different khaps of the region are expected to participate in sarva khap panchayat tomorrow. We only want the Gehlout family to leave the village as they have violated our traditional norms. Now everything depends on tomorrow’s meeting,” said a representative of Kadyan khap here Saturday.

The Gehlout family was asked to leave their native village Dhrana after Ravinder Singh Gehlout, 24, married a 20-year-old girl from the Kadiyan clan.

One of the khap councils, notorious for their vicious campaign against couples getting married within the same clan, accused him of violating a custom of no-marriage between the Gehlout and Kadiyan clans as they have a “brotherhood” akin to consanguinity.

Naseeb Singh, uncle of Ravinder, told IANS Saturday: “So far we have not got any invitation to attend this sarva khap. We are ready to face the members of Kadyan khap so that we can make things clear and answer their all questions.

“Ravinder is not even in this village as he and his wife are staying in Delhi. Why are these people unnecessarily harassing our family members? Though police have provided us sufficient security cover, we are still living in very uncomfortable circumstances,” he added.

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