A Khap Panchayat in Uttar Pradesh has run into trouble with the law after it ordered two sisters to be raped, because their brother eloped with a married girl from the Jat community.
According to IB Times, one of the women has subsequently moved the Supreme Court against the rape orders.
"On July 30, the Jat community held a khap panchayat and decided to avenge the dishonour. The petitioner has been condemned to be raped and paraded naked after blackening their faces only because her brother fell in love and eloped with her friend. The family can never return," the petitioner's – Dalit woman – lawyer Vivek Singh told Hindustan Times.
The petitioner, a 23-year-old resident of a village in Baghpat district, has also accused the state police of acting against her family. She has alleged that the police have implicated her brother in a false case on the orders of the Jat community.
The SC bench has now issued a notice to the state police and asked them to respond to the petitioner's plea to hand over the case to CBI.
A forced marriage angle has also turned up in the case. Reportedly, the girl from the Jat community was forced into a marriage after the family discovered she had an affair with the victims' brother.
A month after the marriage, the girl eloped with the petioner's brother but they had to return due to the pressure from the girl's family and the UP police.
After sending the girl to her parents house, the police falsely implicated the Dalit boy in a narcotics case. He was subsequently granted bail by a local court, but the family then fled to Delhi, says the report.
The Jat community however has taken over the Dalit family's house in the village.
