Haridwar: Panchayat forces girl to marry rapist, his family demands dowry

Any person believing in the equality and dignity of women will be enraged by the judgment passed by a panchayat asking a rape victim to marry a man who raped her at gunpoint.

Roorkee: Any person believing in the equality and dignity of women will be enraged by the judgment passed by a Panchayat asking a rape victim to marry a man who raped her at gunpoint. The Talibani-kind of the judgment was pronounced by village heads. The said village falls under the Mangalore police station area of Roorkee in the Haridwar district of Uttrakhand.

As per the Panchyat's judgement, the marriage took place on 16th May. When the girl's family went for registering the marriage, the accused family objected to it and demanded Rs 5 lakh and a bike as dowry. When the girl's family tried to discuss this with the groom's family, they were ill-treated and thrashed by the rapist's family.

Later, the matter reached the police station and a case was registered against eight people on the victim's complaint. "A case has been registered against eight accused including Danish, Rafa, Idris, Pappu, Farooq, Nazim, Pramod, and Ashok, and investigation has been handed over to woman sub-inspector Anshu Chaudhary", said Mangalore Kotwali SSI, Rafat Ali.

As per the information, on April 13, the victim's parents had gone to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Hospital in Rishikesh for treatment. Since it was humid inside the house, the victim was sleeping with her brother and sisters in the verandah. Taking advantage of it, the accused raped her at gunpoint.

Later, when the girl's parents returned and registered their protest with the accused family, a panchayat was called in for mediation. The panchayat came up with a dubious decision of asking them to get married.