Rajasthan: Raped woman fails 'chastity test', khap seeks Rs 10 lakh for 'purification'

AJMER: A 24-year-old bride in Rajasthan's Bhilwara was allegedly forced to take an illegal virginity test on her first night in her new home, banished by her in-laws based on their primitive notions of chastity and then subjected to the indignity of a khap panchayat trial that slapped a penalty of Rs 10 lakh, meant to be used for rituals to "purify" her.
The thrice-humiliated woman and her kin on Saturday filed a police complaint against her husband, in-laws and the khap panchayat that had been allegedly hounding them for four months to pay up. The FIR states that the complainant's husband and his family assaulted her before convening the khap panchayat at a local temple.
DSP Surendra Kumar said the incident involving the social evil of "kukadi pratha" took place in a village of Bhilwara on May 11, following which the bride apparently told her in-laws that she had been raped by a neighbour sometime before her wedding. She filed a rape case at Subash Nagar police station on May 18, days before the community elders were to announce their verdict.
On May 31, the khap panchayat decreed that the woman's family be made to pay Rs 10 lakh for the puja, setting the stage for the alleged harassment that would follow until they mustered the courage to go to the police against the in-laws and the village community.
Kumar said: "We have registered a case under 498A (coercing a woman to meet any unlawful demand), 384 (extortion), 509 (insulting the modesty of woman) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. The fact that the identity of the victim has been revealed by the khap panchayat in is also a crime".
Ironically, a daughter of the family now facing investigation for the alleged crime had died by suicide a year ago after she went through the same ordeal, the police claimed.