Rajasthan: 5-year-old girl barred from home for breaking eggs of a bird

Jaipur, July 13: The Rajasthan police on Friday booked ten members of a Khap Panchayat in Haripura village of Bundi district for allegedly barring a five-year-old scheduled caste girl from entering her own house, as a punishment for mistakenly breaking an egg of a bird which is considered inauspicious.

The girl was declared "outcast" and deprived of proper food, care, and shelter.

According to police, the diktat was passed on July 2, where the child was forced to stay in the front courtyard and surviving on loaves thrown into her plate from a distance by her pregnant mother.

The members of the panchayat had also ordered the girl and her family to perform religious rituals to absolve themselves of the 'sin' of breaking the egg.

When the girl's father, Hukum Chand Raigar, a 35-year-old Dalit daily wage labourer, protested against the diktat, the khap panchayat members extended the duration of the child's punishment to 11 days.

The child's plight came to light only after her father complained to the area 'tehsildar' (revenue official) that the community head was demanding costly wine and various snacks besides fodder for cows and edibles for fishes to end her ostracisation.

Meanwhile, a case has been registered on the orders of the state's child rights panel chief Manan Chaturvedi who swung into action after the plight of the child came to her notice.

They have been booked under sections 508 (act caused by inducing person to believe that he will be rendered an object of divine displeasure), 384 (punishment for extortion) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC," Lakhsman Singh, police inspector, Hindoli police station, Bundi said.