Inter-caste marriage: BJP MLA sides with colleague

A BJP lawmaker has extended support to his colleague, whose daughter married a Scheduled Caste (SC) youth, and slammed the media debate and those who supported the girl.

"The supporters of the girl will feel the pain and humiliation of the girl's father when their own daughter runs away with some SC youth," BJP legislator Shyam Prakash said in a Facebook post.

The MLA from Gopamau Assembly seat in Hardoi district, used an objectionable word for SC in his post though he deleted the same later.

Meanwhile, saffron party MLA Rajesh Mishra, whose daughter married an SC youth she loved and complained that she and her husband faced threat to their lives from her father, on Sunday said that he felt harassed by the media debate and social humiliation.

"I will commit suicide with my wife if we are humiliated further," Mishra said.

Mishra's remarks came after TV channels vied with one another to take the couple to their studios and hold a debate on the matter.

The couple had alleged that they had been on the run since they clandestinely tied the nuptial knot at a temple in Prayagraj a few days ago.

"We will be killed by my father if he comes to know where we are hiding," said the girl in a video released by the couple and circulated widely on social media.

The couple sought security from the district magistrate of Bareilly, about 250 kilometre from here.

"The goons of my father have been looking for us... They had even managed to trace the hotel where we had been staying... We had to run away from there," she said.

Police sources said that they had knowledge about the video and that they were looking into the matter.