Bombay HC: Inter-caste couple facing death threats to get 24×7 police protection – Times of India

Mumbai: Stepping in to protect a young couple facing death threats due to their inter-caste marriage, Bombay high court has directed “round-the-clock” police protection to them, the husband’s family and two witnesses to their marriage.
“We don’t want something like an honour killing,” said a vacation bench of Justices Shahrukh Kathawala and Surendra Tavade on Friday.
Residents of Mumbai, the couple hail from Chaubari village, Bachao taluka, Gujarat. The woman (23) belongs to the Ahir community and the man (22) is a Brahmin. She is a commerce graduate while he has a bachelor of management studies degree.
In May 2021, before the same judges, the man had filed an habeas corpus to produce his wife. At an online hearing on May 21, the woman was coerced to tell the court that she was compelled to marry him because he had her pictures. His petition was dismissed.
On Friday, both came to court and recounted their plight. Realising that they need immediate protection, the judges requested advocates Deepa Chawan and Manjiri Shah to draft a petition for them.
The couple eloped in February 2020 and returned 10 days later to Mumbai.
In March 2020, the woman was forced to file a case of rape and kidnapping, for which the man was in jail for 4.5 months. She was taken to Gujarat and engaged to another. She returned with her parents to their Jogeshwari residence on December 23.
On December 24, the young couple married at Thane. On December 29, two community heads visited them saying she must go to Chaubari and placate the community.
There on January 1, 2021, alone amidst nearly 150 men who bayed for her blood, she was abused and even assaulted. On May 24, 2021, she was forced to marry a man who told her he had “purchased” her. He physically and sexually assaulted her, “including heinous grievous injury to her private parts” and even “tried to injure her with burning cigarette butts”.
On August 13, 2021, she escaped and reached her Mumbai husband’s residence in Powai. More threats and violence followed. The witnesses to the marriage were threatened with death and kidnap of their children. On September 13, the man’s father was attacked with a cricket bat and stump.
On October 26, a Bachao police team served her a notice, summoning her for theft of Rs 50,000 and Rs 7-8 lakh worth jewellery from the residence of the man she was forcibly married to. The petition said the local police authorities refused to take cognisance of the couple’s complaints on the “specious plea that some of the incidents occurred in Gujarat”.
Apart from directing Mumbai police commissioner, the deputy commissioner (Zone X), the assistant commissioner and senior police inspector (Powai) to provide protection, the judges also directed Gujarat director general of police and Bachao senior police inspector to produce the order before the courts at Gujarat if any orders are sought against the couple.
The woman’s father, a community head, the sarpanch and the man she was forcibly married to have to appear before HC on November 10, failing which the court will pass “necessary orders to ensure their presence”.