Kangaroo Court Beheads Husband for Interracial Marriage
Santosh Kumar Agarwal
August 01, 2008 In a draconian Kangaroo court order, a 30year-old husband was beheaded for marrying a girl outside his religious faith, in Lakshmanpur Village of Murshidabad district of West Bengal about 210Km from Calcutta on 14th July’08. The couple has a 10-months old son.
The body of the diseased Shailendra Prasad, a Hindu, was found in a jute field on 17th July but was identified by his wife only on 27th July after she came to know about the SHALISHI (Kangaroo Court) order and went to the police station along with her brother to file complaint.
The 25-year-old girl Monera Bibi, a Muslim, had been working in Mumbai as a maid and met her future husband, who worked there as a construction worker. Monera said, “We married before a marriage registrar but did not tell my father that my husband was from a different community. In December 2006 I came to my village along with my husband, who assumed a different name of my community, as our village is very orthodox. During our stay of 12 days nobody suspected my husband”.
She and her husband returned to Lakshmanpur next time on 1st July along with their son. On 14th July, during a village ritual, Shailendra muttered a cry that was a dead giveaway of his own religion. His father-in-law overheard him and went to village elders the same day and told them of his suspicion.
“A SHALISHI meeting was held the same evening in the local primary school, where my father took my husband. From that night on my husband went missing”, said the Monera.
The young wife initially thought that her husband had fled to Mumbai out of panic. But soon words spread of his beheading by order from SHALISHI and she came to know about the whole incident leading to beheading her husband.
Inspector-in-charge Arun Das of Behrampur P.S. said, “We received a complaint against 10 persons, lunched an investigation, raided the village and arrested three persons,Gazu Seikh, Sattar Seikh and and Khirul Seikh who participated in the SHALISHI. They confessed to their crime”. Rest of the villagers involved and the father-in-law, Ansaria Seikh, of the diseased fled.
On interrogating them further, a hair-raising story of the ghastly murder unfolded. After knowing the religion of the man forcibly by searching his body, the SHALISHI awarded him death sentence, which was carried out by four villagers. The four, tied the hand and feet of the man, gagged him, dragged him inside a jute field and beheaded him. The head was then buried in the same field.
According to sociologist Baishali Sinha, ‘Shalishi Sabhas” (Kangaroo Courts) are sustained by villages as the poor and illiterate stay away from legal apparatus. Economist Kalyan Sanyal says that ‘Shalishi’ continued in the state because of economic reason and disinclination of Left Front government to interfere with the practices of village communities.
The village where the above ‘shalishi’ has taken place has a 1200-odd population, one primary school, one graduate and nine persons who have somehow cleared secondary examination.
Tags: Kangaroo Court , Interracial Marriage , Beheading
