A 21-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman from Dhar in Madhya Pradesh were allegedly forced by some people to dance with motorcycle tyres around their necks as a punishment for eloping, police said.
The Dhar police registered a case against five people and arrested three of them on Tuesday after a purported video of the incident, which took place in Kundi village on September 12, went viral on social media, they said.
In the clip, a 13-year old girl was also seen being forced to dance along with the man and the woman for allegedly helping them in eloping, police officials said. The three of them were forced to dance with motorcycle tyres put around their necks, and the video also showed a man hitting them with sticks a couple of times.
The person who shot the video could be heard laughing along with others seen in the clip. The incident took place under Gandhwani police station limits, about 70 km from the district headquarters, after the man and the woman returned to their village, Additional Superintendent of Police Devendra Patidar told reporters on Tuesday.
According to police, the woman had gone missing from her home in the village in July this year. "Her family members were angry as she had fled with a man. They suspected that another young girl (seen in video) helped the woman in fleeing from her home," Patidar said.
After leaving their homes, the man and the woman went to Gujarat, another official said. The woman's family members subsequently filed a missing person's complaint with local police. When they returned in the second week of September, they were punished for their actions, the police said. After the video of the incident went viral on social media platforms on Tuesday, the police registered a case against five people and arrested three of them, Patidar said. Efforts were on to nab the other two accused, he said.
The accused were booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 363 (kidnapping), 147 (rioting) and 294 (obscene act), and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he added.
