Gurugram: Members of a self-styled “khap panchayat” in Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri district have been booked by the police on court orders for the social ostracism of a young married couple and their family. For the past five years, the family has been shunned, forced to live in fear.
The couple, belonging to the Jat community, were from different gotras, or clans (marriages within gotras are prohibited in the community), but from two different villages falling under the same khap (region-based social outfits) — the Sangwan Khap — according to the FIR filed in the case, which ThePrint has accessed.
Up to 36 people from Mandola and other villages under Sangwan Khap were booked in the FIR registered by the police at Jhojhu Kalan police station on 20 September.
The villagers had allegedly announced the boycott of Nitish Kumar’s family in 2018 and threatened to parade them naked in the village if they didn’t dissolve their son’s marriage.
The FIR came on a 10 August order of Ramawatar Pareek, additional chief judicial magistrate of Charkhi Dadri, four years after a criminal complaint was filed in court in July 2019 by Nishu Kumari, whose marriage to Nitish, a resident of Mandola village — one of 40 under Sangwan Khap — had led to the his family’s boycott.
The court has also directed the police to probe whether Jhojhu Kalan police station officers and the in-charge of the Mahila helpline were guilty of dereliction of duty. These officers are alleged to have ignored the complaints of the family in the matter.
The FIR, which ThePrint has accessed, has been registered under Indian Penal Code’s (IPC) Sections 141 (to overawe by criminal force or show of criminal force), 143 (unlawful assembly), 452 (trespass to a house with the motive to hurt someone), 503 (criminal intimidation) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation).
When contacted by ThePrint, inspector Kamruddin, current SHO of Jhojhu Kalan police station, confirmed that the FIR had been lodged and said action would be taken against the accused according to the law.
Speaking to ThePrint, Nitish’s father Krishan Kumar, 54, said his family had been living in constant fear ever since they were ostracised.
He said he had sent his son and daughter-in-law out of the village and told them to never visit again, but chose to stay back himself, along with his wife and elderly father, so that they could look after their fields.
Kumar said Nishu and Nitish were living in a town in Haryana and were teachers by profession. ThePrint reached Nitish via calls, but he said he refused to comment on the matter.
The family’s situation in Mandola, though, has improved over the years with them receiving support from their own community in some ways.
Sombir Sangwan, independent MLA from Charkhi Dadri who supports the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP-JJP government in the Haryana Assembly, is the president of Sangwan Khap. However, according to Nishu’s complaint, he was not part of the gathering that had issued the diktat for boycott of Nitish’s family.
ThePrint reached Sombir Sangwan via calls. This story will be updated if and when a response is received.
Also Read: Khap panchayats — the role & history of complex social institution in Haryana & western UP
The woman’s complaint
According to the FIR, Nishu, 22, daughter of Sajjan (only first name mentioned), belonging to the Jat community and resident of Ramalwas village, had married Nitish Kumar, son of Krishan Kumar, a Jat from Mandola village, at Arya Samaj Mandir in Delhi on 14 August, 2018.
In her criminal complaint filed in court, Nishu stated that after marriage, the couple went to live in Mandola but since her parents were initially opposed to the marriage, the couple moved an application for protection in the court of the additional sessions judge of Charkhi Dadri in September that year.
She said that she belongs to the Nehra gotra while her husband belongs to Sangwan gotra. “Even the gotra of Nitish’s mother and grandmother are different from the gotra of my mother and grandmother,” stated Nishu.
According to the complaint, after the application for protection was filed, Nishu’s parents gave consent to the marriage and her husband’s family decided to hold a wedding function in Mandola on 22 September, 2018. But a day before the event, Neelam Rani, who was sarpanch of the village at that time, and Ram Kumar, a resident of Ramalwas village, came to their residence with other villagers.
They threatened that the marriage was against societal norms and, if not annulled, the entire family would be ousted from the village. They also threatened that if the family didn’t comply with the orders, they would all be paraded naked in the village and beaten to death, the complaint said.
“They came to our residence and started forcing us to come to an assembly of people…. However, fearing violence in the panchayat, we refused to accompany them till they served us a written notice. Later, those people assembled in the village school and announced a social boycott of our family,” said Nishu in the complaint.
She claimed that the family submitted a written complaint against the village members to the Adampur police post and called the Mahila helpline 1091, but no action was taken.
She added that the family’s subsequent complaints to the local police, the police superintendent, the director general of police (DGP) and other officials didn’t evoke any response, leaving them with no option but to approach the court.
‘He used to keep sitting alone whole day’
According to Nishu, Nitish’s family has been suffering harassment in Mandola over the past five years and was even stopped from tending to their fields.
The panchayat members allegedly also went to the Arya College of Education in Jhojhu Kalan and asked the management to remove Nitish’s mother Sharmila from a clerical job she held in the college. The Sangwan Khap threatened the college with boycott, Nishu alleged in her complaint, adding that Sharmila was subsequently let go.
“For two years, we could not grow any crops on our fields as the panchayat had barred other villagers from lending their tractors to us on rent,” said Krishan Kumar. “No villager would give us water against money for irrigating our fields. Even for daily use, we had to bring groceries in from Charkhi Dadri.”
He added that there was a kabaddi academy in Mandola to train youth. “I had an accommodation which I had turned into a hostel for them. But the panchayat pressured the academy owner to get my hostel vacated,” he claimed.
According to Kumar, very few people invited them to weddings or other events in the village and added that his father, Atma Ram, in his 60s, passed away in February last year, “complaining of loneliness”.
“With very few people from the village talking to our family, he used to keep sitting on a cot alone throughout the day,” he added.
Over the years, however, Kumar told ThePrint, things have become a little better for the family. “Several villagers from our own community are with us now,” he said, adding that his wife Sharmila contested the panchayat elections held in November 2022 and became a panch after winning from their ward.
“Khap panchayats comprise of Jat gotras, but when it comes to voting, people from all castes, including the Other Backward Classes and Dalits, cast their votes,” he said.
The family is also starting to manage their irrigation needs and has gradually started bringing tractors on rent from a neighbouring village at night to work their fields.
The court’s order
In his order issued on 10 August, which ThePrint has accessed, the Charkhi Dadri judge observed that the contents of Nishu’s complaint pointed to the commission of a cognisable offence in view of the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case Shakti Vahini vs Union of India.
In that case, the court had laid down in March 2018 that it was illegal for a khap panchayat to punish or prevent two consenting adults from marrying each other.
Nishu’s complaint had named 40 people as accused, of which 36 were members of Mandola and other villages who had allegedly issued the diktat for social boycott of Nitish’s family.
Four others named were Jag Ram, then SHO of Jhojhu Kalan police station, Pawan Kumar, police post-in-charge at Adampur, Rakesh Kumar, an assistant sub-inspector at the police station, and Manisha, in-charge of the Mahila helpline. They are alleged to not have acted on the family’s complaints.
The court ordered an FIR against the 36 villagers named in the complaint, and said that if the rest were found guilty of dereliction of duty, a separate FIR could be lodged against them.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)