JOIN USIn a shocking incident, a woman was allegedly stripped and paraded in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district, about 40 km from here, by some people of the same village following an altercation with a member of her family.
According to reports, the woman kept pleading with her tormentors to let her go but her pleadings fell on deaf ears even as the other villagers remained mere onlookers and did not interfere.
Reports said the miscreants, who also hailed from the same village, had an altercation with one Kripa Shankar Tewari on Sunday evening over a petty issue. They had then threatened to teach him a lesson.
The miscreants numbering around four barged into the house of Tewari on Monday in an apparent bid to exact their revenge but he was not present. Irked over his absence they caught hold of Tewari’s younger brother Badri and began thrashing him. On hearing his cries, Badri’s wife rushed to rescue him from the attackers, reports said.
The attackers then caught hold of the woman and paraded her in the lanes of the village after stripping her, according to eye witness accounts. “I kept pleading with them to leave me but they did not listen... They also hit me repeatedly with boots and rods”, the victim alleged. She was let off only after some people from the village gathered courage and asked them to leave her.
The victim and her family approached the police for lodging a report but the latter, instead of registering a case and taking action, told the victim and her family that the matter would be investigated by the ‘Mahila’ (woman) police. The delayed response from the police allowed the culprits to escape from the village.
“We are looking into the matter...we will take stern action against the guilty”, said D K Rai, the district police chief. Senior officials have also reached the village and security personnel had been deployed in strength as a precautionary measure. The situation in the village was reported to be “tense”.