A woman was stripped, her hair chopped off, and a garland of shoes was forced around her neck. She was then paraded through a village in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain.
The incident took place on June 30 in Arnia Vena village under the Jharda police station limits. A video of the alleged assault surfaced two days later, triggering outrage. Police have registered a case against 11 people, including three women, arrested three accused, and launched a manhunt for the remaining eight.
According to police, the woman had originally been married elsewhere in the same village but later left her first husband after falling in love with another man. The couple married in 2023 and began living in a rented house in Indore.
Police say the dispute erupted when the woman returned to her husband's ancestral home, seeking a share in the family's agricultural land.
According to her police complaint, she was inside a room around 9:30 am on June 30 when several members of the family allegedly broke open the door, dragged her out by her hair and assaulted her. She has alleged that the accused repeatedly kicked and punched her while women in the group held her down.
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During the assault, her hair was cut off, her clothes were torn, and she was left without clothes before being forced to wear a garland made of shoes and paraded through the village. Her husband, who allegedly tried to intervene, was also beaten.
The woman told police that the accused threatened to record videos of the humiliation, circulate them on social media and kill the couple. She sustained injuries to her eye, head, cheek and abdomen, while her husband suffered injuries to his face, chest and stomach, according to the complaint. The couple alerted police through the Dial-112 emergency service.
Jharda Police Station in-charge Anand Bhabor said a case has been registered against 11 named accused under multiple provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including charges relating to assault, criminal intimidation, outraging a woman's dignity and common intention. Three accused, including Badrilal, have been arrested and remanded to judicial custody. Police teams are searching for the remaining accused, including Sumer Singh and Kachru Singh.
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SDOP Zenden Lingzerpa said the woman had complained of being publicly humiliated and paraded in the village. Preliminary investigation indicates the violence arose out of a family dispute linked to property. The complaint names her husband, in-laws, other relatives and some villagers, and action has been initiated against all those accused. The incident has once again raised disturbing questions over the persistence of public humiliation as a tool of coercion in rural disputes, with a property disagreement allegedly escalating into an act of mob violence that police are now investigating.
