11 panchayat members booked for issuing diktat against family

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, January 11

The police on Friday registered a case against 11 members of a social panchayat, which issued diktat against the family of a youth who married a woman belonging to another caste in Prabhuwala village of the district.

Upset over the decision of the youth to marry the woman from a different caste in the same village, the social panchayat has asked the family to leave Prabhuwala, stating their presence in the village was causing tension. The newlywed couple left the village in December and has been staying elsewhere since.

A social custom in Haryana prohibits marriage of men and women from the same village.

Sanjay Chauhan, a social activist who lodged a complaint with the police in the case, said he met the family members of the youth. “They said they have been getting threats from some people in the village. The social panchayat that issued the diktat against them at a meeting on January 6 has formed an 11-member committee, which has been assigned the task to implement the diktat to evict the family by January 31,” said Chauhan. He alleged the panchayat had asked the family to settle at least 50 km away from the village.

Krishan Lal, SHO, said a case under Sections 141 (by means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, compel any person to do what he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do what he is legally entitled to do), 143 (unlawful assembly), and 506 (criminal intimidation) against 11 members of the social panchayat and others who were present at the meeting. They have been identified as Parminder Singh (husband of village sarpanch), Thakur Balbir Ajmera, Rajkumar Bedi, Gyanchand Sharma, Gyanchand Bhatia, Prem Nain, Rajkumar Jangra, Krishan Kumar, Ramkishan Bhaat, Surjeet Bishnoi and Bhoop Singh. The police had started investigation after the registration of the case, he said.

A day after the panchayat issued the diktat, the police had visited the village and called a meeting of villagers to resolve the issue. The village’s elected panchayat and some other prominent persons had given in writing to the police that nobody would be threatened or asked to leave the village.

The case

• The family of the woman had lodged a missing complaint in the Uklana police station on December 22
• The police, however, disposed of the case after they were informed that she had solemnised marriage with a youth. The couple was of marriageable age
• The youth belonged to the Backward Caste and the woman to the Scheduled Caste