Editorial
A woman whipped!
Those responsible should be brought to justice
A young woman in Daudkandi was whipped mercilessly, following a decree by the influential locals in the name of salish. The girl was lashed 39 times, and had to be hospitalised, as she failed to 'prove' that she had been cheated by a neighbour, who actually rejected her claim that he was the father of her newborn baby. It is another sordid example of a young woman being subjected to gross injustice by the village headmen assuming the role of arbitrators.
Similar incidents took place quite a few times in the past in which the village mullahs and influential people, out of their abysmal ignorance and a marked bias against women, almost always sided with the male offenders, and meted out painful punishment to the women seeking justice.
Now the question is, how can the fate of the hapless poor women be left to the people having no sympathy for them and, obviously, no sense of justice? The Daudkandi woman has appealed for a DNA test of her baby to prove her claim. Without question, this is a highly dependable method of settling all such disputes. But what is extremely disquieting is the fact that the arbitrators did not give the woman any chance to establish her claim and delivered their verdict in favour of the accused. How could they be certain that the man was innocent? And if they were so gullible as to believe what he said in his defence, they were actually further victimising an innocent woman.
The self-styled village judges were also completely unaware of the High Court ruling that in cases of sexual crimes there is no legal bar to accepting the victim's testimony before the court, when no other evidence is available, as the basis for prosecuting the accused. This HC ruling should have gone a long way in curbing such crimes, but the ground reality is that the vulnerable women are still subjected to such an oppressive practice not recognised by the law of the land.
Those involved in passing the order and whipping the woman have actually committed a culpable crime. They have to be brought to justice along with the accused. Who are they to deliver a judgment which could have cost the woman her life? The local administration and the law enforcers should immediately take up the matter and catch the so-called village arbiter having no legal sanction.
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