Woman stripped naked and paraded on donkey in India

Police in India said a woman was on Saturday night partially stripped naked and paraded on a donkey through her village in Rajsamand district in northern India after being accused of killing her nephew. AFP reports that the villagers also cut her and blackened her face with coal dust.

The woman with a police officer

The village council had accused her of killing her nephew who had died some time earlier.

Thirty nine people in the village have been arrested over the incident and the woman is currently in custody of her family members.

Superintendent of police, Sudhir Joshi told AFP: “The woman aged around 40 years was in her house when some villagers stormed into the house and pulled her out on Saturday evening.

“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 added: “It was after a meeting of the panchayat (village elders). The cruel punishment was meted out to the woman just on a suspicion”.

According to the news agency, councils made up of village elders, usually known as “khap panchayats”, are common in rural parts of northern India, where they are often accused of meting out “Taliban-style justice”which usually seen as regressive by women’s rights activists.

September last year, one of such councils in West Bengal ordered the gang-raping of a 20-year-old woman who was accused of “dishonouring” her village by having a relationship with a man from a different community. Thirteen men were jailed for the gang-raping.