Man molests, gets away lightly thanks to village panchayat

Agra: In a bizarre decision, a panchayat in Agra district let off a man accused of molesting a 28-year-old woman with a minimal punishment of ‘five-shoe strikes’.
The accused, 20 years of age, allegedly groped a woman from behind while she was feeding a cattle in Nayabas village of Barahan area on Thursday night. When the woman and her husband planned to lodge a complaint with the police, village elders asked them to approach the panchayat instead.
“We were told not to register a police complaint against the accused, as registering a formal complaint with the police would give their community (Jaatav) a bad name,” a family member, who did not want to be named, alleged.
“When we approached the panchayat for help on Friday, all they did was to ask the accused’s father to slap him and then hit him with a shoe five times,” he further claimed.
When TOI spoke to Barahan station officer (SO) Awadesh Kumar Tripathi, he said, “Since no written complaint was filed in the matter, we are not sure what exactly transpired on Thursday. What I gather is that the father of the accused hit him with a shoe to resolve the matter.”
In another incident in Barahan area, a man was beaten by a woman, her husband and their two children for passing lewd comments at her in Chhopra village.
The 21-year-old man had allegedly said something rude to the woman, to which she asked him to meet her alone at Awalkheda roundabout.
“When I confronted him on Friday afternoon, he tried to flee away as he was expecting a young unmarried girl. My children and husband gheraoed him and beat him with sandals, so that next time he does not behave rudely with women,” she said. However, no FIR was lodged in this case.