Dibakar Bepari, in his twenties, hung himself inside a temple after being fined Rs 25,000 by the kangaroo court for bringing ‘shame’ to the girl’s family by helping her.
A youth from Kalimela village of Malkangiri district allegedly committed suicide on Friday after he was allegedly tortured and fined by a local kangaroo court for helping a couple from the village elope, police said. The couple, however, returned to the village on Thursday, a day after they left for Bhubaneswar.
Dibakar Bepari, in his twenties, hung himself inside a temple after being fined Rs 25,000 by the kangaroo court for bringing ‘shame’ to the girl’s family by helping her.
“We were having dinner (on Thursday), when they (village court) summoned my brother. The meeting started at 10 pm and ended at 2 am. My brother helped another man in a relationship with a local girl. He was punished for it,” said Rabindra Bepari, brother of the deceased. Dibakar’s family has alleged that he was also tortured during the meeting.
Dibakar’s body was found on Friday by villagers and brought to his house. Dibakar belonged to an immigrant Bengali community which settled in the district after the 1971 Bangladesh war, police sources said. Kangaroo courts exist as a parallel judicial system in such villages, they said. “His body did not carry signs of torture, but it has been dispatched for postmortem,” said a police officer.