Beaten, heads shaven and garlanded with shoes!

There are no words to express our outrage and anguish upon reading the report in this paper about the medieval treatment meted out to a poor couple of an ethnic minority by village arbitrators in Mymensingh. Villagers decided to take the law into their own hands and inflict the most humiliating punishment on this couple. The husband and wife were dragged out of their house, brutally beaten, their heads were shaved and they were paraded around the village with garlands of shoes around their necks. They were also fined a huge sum, failing which, they were threatened with eviction from the village.

Firstly, who gave them the authority to be the moral police of the village, to pass a verdict and then carry out the most disgusting form of punishment? There is no legal justification for such arbitration. Secondly, what were the local authorities, the police, doing when all this was happening? The comment by a local representative that the perpetrators did not inform them (the local representatives) and hence they had no idea of the incident, is ludicrous. The self-appointed arbitrators tortured the hapless couple in front of all the villagers. Were all the public officials and law enforcers in deep slumber while the illegal act was being perpetrated publicly?

We demand that the group involved in this despicable crime be immediately arrested, put on trial and meted out exemplary punishment under the law of the land. It is the responsibility of the law enforcers, local government officials and the villagers to protect members of the community and ensure that their rights are not violated in this way.