Couple stripped, paraded tonsured- India

Couple paraded naked as caste rears its ugly head
A young couple were tonsured, stripped and paraded naked in a Jharkhand village for marrying out of caste, and people were so incensed that they even beat up an old woman who tried to cover up the girl. The sentence against Vishnu Naik, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste, and his wife Galo, from a Scheduled Tribe, was passed by the panchayat of Manhu village, just 40 km from here, Thursday. The couple had been in love for four years and decided that the only way out for them was eloping and getting married. They returned three days ago, hoping to find that tensions had subsided. But it had clearly not. The issue came up in the weekly meeting of the village council Thursday when the girl's father complained. The village elders agreed with him, condemned the marriage and agreed to the suggestion that one way of punishing them was to tonsure them and parade them naked.