A caste panchayat of the Banjara community in Guna district of Madhya Pradesh had ordered a man to get his seven-year-old girl married to an eight-year-old boy as punishment for killing a calf three years ago, New Indian Express reported.
Jagdish Banjara, had already been punished when the incident happened three years ago. He was ordered to bathe in the Ganga river and host a grand non-vegetarian feast for the entire community in his village. Banjara’s family was also barred from fetching water from the wells in the village.
“I fulfilled all their diktats. I bathed in the Ganga, prayed in several temples and hosted a non-vegetarian feast for the Banjara people of my village. But still my family and I were ostracised for three years,” he was quoted by the New Indian Express as saying.
“Instead of putting an end to the ostracisation, the caste elders held us guilty again because people from other villages were not willing to marry into Tarpur. The panchayat then ordered us to marry our seven-year-old daughter to an eight-year-old boy from Vidisha district,” he told the daily.
