Six assaulted over inter-caste marriage?

DHARMAPURI: The police have launched an investigation into allegations doing the rounds on social media about three women and three men being stripped, tied to a tree and beaten up over an intercaste couple’s elopement in Pennagaram taluk. The officials have been guarded in their response, but reports indicate the women were sexually abused while they were tied up to the tree.

Police superintendent P Rajan said an inspector was trying to ascertain the veracity of the claims made on social media. Reports indicate a family from here has ‘escaped’ to Bengaluru. Efforts are now on to reach out to that family to confirm the reports.

No case has been registered so far. The alleged incident happened on Friday night in Pikkampatti village. Tension was high ever since a 23-year-old man from the Backward Class (BC) eloped with a girl belonging to a Most Backward Class (MBC) last month. It has been claimed that the man’s family soon started receiving death threats. They were ostracised a week later, following which they left for Bengaluru.

Groom’s relatives sexually harassed?

Meanwhile, a relative of the girl offered a peace deal to the man’s father. Based on the assurances given by the girl’s family, the man’s father reached Pikkampatti on Friday evening. He was accompanied by his wife, sister and three relatives. Upon landing in the village, the six-member party was allegedly surrounded by the people from the community.

The mob reportedly hurled abuses and tied them to a tree. Later, the members of the MBC community allegedly stripped and flogged them. According to a villager, the girl’s family members stripped the three women and sexually abused them. The villager added that women from the MBC community also assaulted the six victims. While the report has been doing the rounds on WhatsApp, a villager, who was a purported witness, refused to give testimony, fearing a backlash.

Meanwhile, when TNIE contacted Village Administrative Officer Murugan, he confirmed that there was some tension in the village ever since the elopement. When asked about the steps taken to soothe the frayed nerves, he claimed to have submitted a report to Pennagaram tahsildar Sadhasivam, who remained unreachable at the time of going to press.

However, Dharmapuri Sub- Collector Sivan Arul told TNIE that Sadhasivam had investigated the tension and submitted a report to him. According to the report, the BC community family had not been staying in the village for the past three weeks. The inquiry revealed no incident of violence.