Maoists performs marriage of couple at kangaroo court

Vijay Deo Jha RANCHI | Thursday, June 24, 2010

You will not expect the Maoists singing and dancing on filmi songs at a kangaroo court instead of their pet revolutionary songs: Lal Salam. That was true with the kangaroo court held on late Tuesday night in the deep forest of village Barbaiyah situated on the border of Latehar-Palamu district.

Call it their desperate move to rebuild their image among the public or their spirit to fight against social evil cadres of the CPI(Maoist) they performed the marriage of a couple Pawan Kumar and Sandhya Kumari, who had been in love from the past three years. But they could not marry due to the demand of dowry by Virendra Prasad, the father of groom. Maoist even managed local priest to perform the marriage ceremony.

"We are against the dowry system. We acted only after the organisation has approached us in this regard. We tried to negotiate which failed and later on we forced the family of groom to be ready to face the consequence," CPI(Maoist) zonal commander, Satyendraji said.

The ceremony was performed at a kangaroo court in the presence of the family members of both the sides and the villagers as well. The boy hails from Barbaiyah while the girl is the native of Amba Kothi of Latehar district. Both are pursuing their graduation in Ranchi and Latehar, respectively. Though the bride side had paid around Rs 1.48 lakh as dowry to Pawan's family but they demanded more than what was offered.

The girl probably contacted local Maoist operative to settle the issue. Fearing Maoist backlash Virendra sent his son to Ranchi. Maoists allegedly threatened the family of boy to burn their house and even kill them if they do not call back Pawan for marriage.

Willingly or out of fear local villagers participated in the kangaroo marriage as witnesses. Claiming that CPI(Maoists) have carried nearly a dozen of such marriage ceremony, Satyendraji added that a few other similar cases are yet to be solved.