The Indian Supreme Court has ordered an investigation into the gang rape of a 20-year-old woman allegedly on the orders of a village council,the premier Indian news agency reported on Friday.
13 people have been held by the police in India’s West Bengal state in connection with a gang rape of a 20-year-old woman, allegedly on orders of the village elders.
According to police, the incident took place on Monday in Birbhum district when a tribal woman’s relationship to a non-tribal man from a nearby village became public.
“The relationship was going on for almost five years. When the man visited the woman’s home on Monday with the proposal of marriage, villagers spotted him and organised a kangaroo court. During the ‘proceedings’, the couple were made to sit with hands tied,” Birbhum police chief C Sudhakar said.
The court head fined the couple 25,000 rupees for violating local codes. The man paid the fine but the woman’s family could not, upon which the headman allegedly ordered her rape.
The woman’s family went to the police on Wednesday to report the rape.
“Her family could not pay, so go enjoy the girl,” the headman reportedly told villagers, according to a complaint filed by the woman’s family.
13 men, including the headman have been arrested by the police. The girl has been shifted to a hospital in a critical condition.
Unofficial courts in India’s villages often sanction killings of couples believed to have violated local codes.
In 2010, village elders in Birbhum had ordered at least three tribal women to strip and walk naked in front of large crowds in West Bengal as a punishment for “having close relations” with men from other communities, police say.
