Cobbler forced to lick his saliva as punishment in Bihar

 A man was forced to lick his own spit in Bihar's Nalanda district as punishment for trying to enter the home of an influential man of a village allegedly without permission.

A case was registered today against the perpetrators of the crime after a video on the incident went viral on social media. The sordid incident took place at Azadpur village under Noorsarai police station area yesterday.

The 54-year-old man named Mahesh Thakur, a cobbler had tried to enter the house allegedly without knocking on its door on Wednesday evening.

A panchayat sabha was called in the village the next day by the mukhiya Dayanand Manjhi and it decided on the punishment in which the man was forced to spit and then lick it for his alleged misdeed. Thakur's misery did not end there as he was then beaten by women with their slippers in full public view.

Nalanda, which is about 70 km from capital Patna, is the home district of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. After the video on the incident went viral, Nalanda district magistrate Thiyagarajan S M and superintendent of police Sudhir Kumar Porika today ordered registration of FIR against eight people.

The accused included Manjhi and a village influential man Dharmendra Yadav, who is the kin of the person in whose house Thakur had tried to enter allegedly without permission, and the FIR was registered on the basis of the statement of the victim.

No arrests have been made so far as the accused are absconding, the SP told reporters. The DM and SP said that conflicting information emerged after talking to villagers about the incident.

While some said that Thakur tried to enter into the house at a time when only women family members were present, some others said that he had gone to seek 'khaini' (tobacco) from the houseowner not knowing that he was not at home. Noorsarai Office in-charge has been entrusted with the probe into the incident and to catch the accused, the SP said.