Patna: Police have arrested three persons after a kangaroo court in a village in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand ordered rape for an attempt to rape in what is being believed to be the first such case in the region.
Police said a youth in an inebriated state strayed into the house of a neighbour on Sunday night and then tried to rape a woman while she was asleep. Reports said her husband was not present at home, however the woman mustered enough courage to fend off the intruder thereby forcing him to take to his heels.
The next morning, she brought the matter to the village court, which after hearing both sides ordered for rape of any female members of the suspect by the victim’s husband.
Wasting no time, the woman raced into the house of the suspect, dragged his teenaged sister to the court and handed the girl to her husband to “execute” the kangaroo court’s diktat. Subsequently, the man moved into the nearby forest with the girl and raped her even as the villagers still remained present in the village court.
Soon after the incident, the rape victim registered a complaint against the woman’s husband at Gomia police station. Acting on the complaint, the police have arrested the man who raped the girl on the kangaroo court’s order, the youth who attempted to rape his neighbour and the village head Ghosal Pasi, who handed out the rape-for-a-rape order.
“This is a very shocking incident. We have arrested all three main protagonists of the case and raids are on to nab the other accused persons,” the local Gomia police official Birendra Kumar Ram told the local media today. He said the victim had been sent for medical examination and the further investigation was continuing.
“Those taking law unto their own hands will not be spared at any cost,” he added.
