(Photo: Altered by Chetan Bhakuni/The Quint)
Police force was deployed in the Ghugahiya village in Uttar Pradesh‘s Sambhal district on Tuesday, 7 February, after higher caste villagers threatened to obstruct a Dalit family’s wedding procession.
The wedding took place in the presence of 27 police officers who patrolled the area while drones kept a watch from above.
Why the threat? The bride’s parents, Rishipal Valmiki and Sheela Devi, had bought a Royal Enfield motorcycle to give as a gift to the newly-weds. The Yadavs in the village took it as an affront to their pride and threatened to obstruct the wedding procession.
Yadavs, who are categorised as Other Backward Class (OBC), are numerically and socially dominant at the village level.
Sheela Devi approached the police: The bride’s mother, Sheela Devi, filed a complaint with the police against the villagers for creating obstacles in her 20-year-old daughter Kavita’s wedding.
The bride’s family is the only Valmiki family in the village. Valmikis are categorised as Scheduled Caste (SC).
This story was originally published in thequint.com . Read the full story here