Money cannot buy honor of a woman: Sharmistha Mukherjee on Haryana panchayat

Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee on Thursday said that one cannot buy honor of a woman with money or by beating with shoes to justify rape while responding to Haryana panchayat who ordered shoe slaps and five lakh as punishment for the accused of raping a girl in Hisar district.

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"This is not right that the Panchayat asking the accuse to pay 5 lakh rupees and by beating with shoes you are punishing the accuse, this is absolutely wrong. You cannot buy honor of a woman with money and justify rape. It is absolutely patriarchal. There should be through investigation in this matter. The panchayat are also elected representatives of the people, this is also their duty to uphold the law they just cannot bypass the law of the country," Mukherjee told ANI here.

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Expressing grief, Mukherjee added that it a very grave situation and it indicates as if living in a 'jungle raj'.

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"There is no law and order in the country. And it is a rule of mob kind of a situation which is really dangerous for a civilized society. No matter rape is a hideous crime and there should be social pressure to stop that," she said

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Echoing similar statement, social activist Pramila Nesargi said that it is very unfortunate that the matter was wrapped in such a way.

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"It is very unfortunate that the matter was wrapped up in this way. No complaint was lodged, no police action was taken. What kind of system is this?All the Panchayat members must be held responsible. Police should be held responsible for negligence and the accused must be taken into custody," Nesargi added.

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The Haryana panchayat ordered five shoe slaps as punishment for the rape acuused for raping a girl in Hisar district.

The panchayat also ordered the accused a compensation of 5 lakh.

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The girl had lodged a police complaint against the accused, but before the officials could initiate any action, the panchayat ordered the punishment.