Youth tortured for eloping with a high caste girl

Akbar, 22, paid the price for falling in love with a higher caste girl in his village in Vaishali district of Bihar. The youth — son of...

Akbar, 22, paid the price for falling in love with a higher caste girl in his village in Vaishali district of Bihar. The youth — son of Haadis Mian, a tailor by profession — was allegedly tortured, hung from a tree, beaten with hockey sticks, burnt with cigarette butts and his nails pulled out for daring to run away with a girl of a sheikh’s family from Hasanpur Osthi village in the district.

Three weeks later, Akbar sits in his relative’s house in Hajipur in the same district with bandages on his head and hands and burn marks on his thighs.

Akbar — who has now been expelled from the village by the girl’s family — refuses to talk about the girl, Sakina, but is willing to talk about the torture.

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Villagers say Akbar and Sakina eloped on February 14 to the neighbouring Abdulpur village. Akbar left Sakina with his relatives and came back home. But the girl’s brother, uncles and cousins allegedly caught him and hung him from a tree and beat him with hockey sticks to find out where he had taken the girl.

‘‘They beat me and cut me with blades. They kept torturing me. I said I didn’t know anything but they wouldn’t stop,’’ he said. Villagers say they tried to stop the girl’s relatives from doing so but in vain. Police have acted after reports appeared in local newspapers. Akbar’s mother Amna Khatoun has now been able to file an FIR. ‘‘The girl is also responsible. Why are they not blaming her?” she asks.

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