An Indian village council has allegedly sentenced two low caste sisters to be raped as a revenge for their brother's elopement with an upper caste girl.
The council, locally referred as Khap Panchayat, in the Baghpat district of northern Uttar Pradesh state issued an order that a 23-year-old Dalit girl and her sister should be raped and paraded naked in their village as punishment for her brother eloping with an upper caste married Jat woman, according to India TV News.
"On July 30, the Jat community held a khap panchayat and decided to avenge the dishonour. The petitioner has been condemned to be raped and paraded naked after blackening their faces only because her brother fell in love and eloped with her friend. The family can never return," their attorney Vivek Singh told Hindustan Times.
The Dalit sisters have appealed to the India's Supreme Court for protection following the Khap Panchayat's shocking order, according to Telegraph India.
"She and her family cannot return back to her village and have been rendered homeless. She has been condemned by the Khap Panchayat to be raped and paraded naked because her brother Ravi fell in love and eloped with her friend Krishna who belongs to the dominant caste of Jat," the Dalit girls' petition to the New Delhi-based Supreme Court said, The Times of India reported.
The sisters said in their petition that upper caste Jat community members forced their family members to flee the village and take refuge in Delhi. The Dalit girls and their family members have faced constant harassment from the Jat community as well as police before fleeing the village.
