Sandpiper eggs: 4 community leaders arrested in Rajasthan

Days after a 5-year-old girl was declared an "outcast" for breaking the eggs of a sandpiper at her school in Haripura village of Rajasthan, four of the ten community leaders who passed the diktat have been arrested, police said today.

The girl had accidentally broken the eggs of the bird, considered a messenger of rain, on July 2.

According to local beliefs, harming the bird or its eggs entails punishment.

The girl was thereafter declared an outcast by the village elders and barred from entering her house for 11 days.

Circle in-charge, Hindoli police station, Laxman Singh said Chittar Regar, Onkar Regar, Raghunath Rager and Ramdev Rager have been arrested and the remaining accused were absconding.

The four were today produced before a local court which sent them to 15 days of judicial custody.

Hindoli Circle DSP Nanagram said all those helping the absconding accused would also be identified.

Acting on a complaint by the victim's father, the police had last week booked ten community heads of Haripura village under various sections of IPC, Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 and Untouchability Offences Act, 1955.

The matter came to light after Hindoli Tehsildar Bhawana Singh and SHO Laxman Singh came down heavily on the community leaders of the village for issuing such a diktat.