A young woman from Betul in Madhya Pradesh has got an FIR registered against her father, uncle and two others for allegedly intimidating her and forcing her to undergo a ‘purification’ ritual for marrying a dalit youth.
The 24-year-old woman (name withheld on request) has alleged that her father and uncle, along with two neighbours from her native village Sataldehi, took her to river Narmada in Hoshangabad on August 19 and forced her to undergo the ‘purification rituals’. They beat her up and threatened to kill her and her husband. They also threatened to get her rusticated from the nursing college where she is studying if she did not get separated from her husband, the woman told THE WEEK over phone.
“They performed the puja, made me bathe in few clothes in full public glare at Sethani ghat in Narmada, cut two inches of my hair and made me eat puris (fried chapattis) first eaten by them as a way of purifying me. They also forced me to discard the clothes I was wearing on the banks of the river. When I protested, they beat me up and said I had to do this because I married a dalit man,” she said.
The Kotwali police in Betul has registered a case against the woman’s father Dheeraj Yadav, her uncle Radhelal Yadav and two villagers of Sataldehi, Mahesh Yadav and Madhu alias Madan Yadav, based on her complaint late on Friday night.
The FIR has been registered under sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 504 (intention insult at public place) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.
The woman told THE WEEK that it took her and her husband Amit Ahirwar a lot of effort even to get the FIR registered and alleged that the earlier complaints filed by them regarding the threat to their life had elicited no response from the police. It was only after she managed to talk to Betul Superintendent of Police Simala Prasad outside her office on Friday that the FIR was registered around midnight.
She said that she married Amit Ahirwar, who she met in 2014, on March 11, 2020, at Arya Samaj temple in Betul. As she knew her family would not give consent to the alliance, she kept it a secret from them during the lockdown months. On January 4, 2020, she moved to her husband’s home in Tikari in Betul town and called her father to inform him of the marriage. On the same day, she also gave an application to the Betul police demanding protection as she expected trouble.
“My family members who arrived (at her house) were enraged and they threatened me. Later, on January 10, my father lodged a missing complaint at Chopna police station. Chopna police arrived at my husband’s place on January 12 with my family members and took me away on the pretext of registering my statement. However, they handed me over to my family who took me back to Sataldehi. Here too, I was intimidated and asked to break off the marriage failing which I would be killed. They also threatened Amit’s family and did not allow me to talk to them for a month,” she said. Amit filed a police complaint in this regard on February 1, but got no response, she added.
She was allowed to go to college in Rajgarh in February as her exams were coming up, but the threat of getting her rusticated from college if she did not behave according to her family's wishes remained.
On August 18, her father and uncle took her to Indore from Rajgarh on the pretext of Rakshabandhan, and then took her to Hoshangabad for the ‘purification’ rituals the next day.
“We are still feeling threatened and want action against my family members and others who forced me to undergo the rituals and are threatening us. I am an adult with full rights to marry and spend my life according to my wishes. I want my family to understand this,” the woman said.
The in-charge of Kotwali police station in Betul, Ratnakar Hindwe told THE WEEK that a charge-sheet will be filed in the court and the case will continue there. He said that there is no need to arrest the accused as per the sections under which the case was registered.