Political row, tension in Bikaner district after teen, woman elope
The protest continued even as the girl and her teacher posted a video on Tuesday claiming they are in a relationship and eloped out of their will.
Traders in Bikaner’s Shri Dungargarh town observed a shutdown of markets on Tuesday demanding quick rescue of a 17-year-old Hindu girl, alleging she was abducted by her 21-year-old Muslim woman teacher on June 30, police said.
The protest continued even as the girl and her teacher posted a video on Tuesday morning claiming they are in a relationship and eloped out of their will to stay together.
On Tuesday, the local traders’ association in Dungargarh kept the markets closed, accusing the teacher of “forcefully abducting the girl for conversion”. The traders joined the family of the girl, a class 12 student at a local private school, who has been staging a dharna near the Dungargarh police station for the past three days.
The incident has taken a political turn, with the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the chief minister Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government of being “ignorant about the women’s safety” in the state.
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“The girl is not only the daughter of this family but the daughter of the entire Dungargarh. It’s really disappointing that the Bikaner superintendent of police has failed to take any action against such crime despite being a woman herself,” leader of opposition in assembly Rajendra Rathore alleged, after meeting the girl’s family at the Dungargarh police station on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in a YouTube video on Tuesday morning, the girl and her teacher apologised to their families and protesters. The girl, with her face covered in the video, said: “We are in a lesbian relationship for a long time. I urge police not to take action against relatives of my teacher as she has neither kidnapped me nor converted me.”
“We came together of our own will; I have not been kidnapped,” the girl said.
According to the police, the girl went to school on June 30 and was missing since. A first information report (FIR) was registered at the local police station on the next morning, an officer said.
A case under Sections 363 (punishment for kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage, etc), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant sections of the Juvenile Justice Act against the teacher. Bikaner SP Tejaswani Gautam said they brought the charge of abduction against the teacher as the girl was minor and “such elopement despite her consent is not permissible in law”. She added: “We are working on some leads. We hope we will get them soon.”
