A 32-year-old tribal woman was allegedly made to carry her husband on her shoulders for nearly 2 km across Khedi village in Madhya Pradesh’s Jhabua district as a ‘punishment’ for ‘running away’ with another tribal man.
A video of the incident, which occurred on Sunday, in which the woman is purportedly seen carrying a man on her shoulders and also being beaten up by him and other villagers, has gone viral.
Police have booked six people, including her brother-in-law and father-in-law, after the woman lodged a complaint and arrested four of them, SP Mahesh Chnadra Jain said on Tuesday. Another officer said the woman’s husband had filed a complaint with the Pitol Police stating that his wife had “eloped” with a tribal man on October 28. However, she was “brought back” to the village, dominated by the Bhil community, after a “mediation” on November 4, said station in-charge Naveen Pathak.
The officer said the woman was allegedly beaten up by her husband and some villagers before she was forced to carry him on her shoulders across the entire village. “We have booked six people under Sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) , 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the IPC,” Pathak said.
