India woman stripped, paraded on donkey as punishment

A woman was partially stripped naked and paraded on
a donkey through her village in northern India after
being accused of killing her nephew, police said
Monday.
Members of the village also blackened her face with
coal dust and cut her hair following orders from a local
council of elders in Rajasthan, the police officer said.
Thirty nine people, mostly members of the village in
Rajsamand district, have been arrested over the
incident that took place on Saturday night, additional
superintendent of police Sudhir Joshi said.
The woman was accused by the village council of
killing her nephew who had died some time earlier, the
officer said.
“The woman aged around 40 years was in her house
when some villagers stormed into the house and pulled
her out on Saturday evening,” Joshi told AFP.
“They cut her hair, blackened her face and stripped her
half naked. Then they mounted her on a donkey and
paraded her in the village for ten minutes,” he said.
“It was after a meeting of the panchayat (village
elders). The cruel punishment was meted out to the
woman just on a suspicion,” he said.
The woman was now being cared for by family
members, the officer added.
Councils made up of village elders, usually known as
“khap panchayats”, are common in rural parts of India,
especially in the north, where they are often accused of
dispensing “Taliban-style justice”.
Their diktats are often unconstitutional and illegal, but
they continue to hold sway with rules seen as
regressive by women’s rights activists.
In September this year, 13 men were jailed in West
Bengal state for gang-raping a woman who was
accused by the local council of “dishonouring” her
village.
The council ordered the attack against the 20-year-old
woman for the perceived offence of having a
relationship with a man from a different community.