'Beat your drunk husbands': MP minister gifts wooden bats to 700 brides

Brides gifted bat by minister, to be used on husbands if they turn alcoholic

What would you generally gift a newly-married couple? A Madhya Pradesh minister decided on an unusual present — a 'mogri' or a wooden bat — for nearly 700 brides at a mass marriage ceremony.

While the mogri is traditionally used to wash clothes, the minister has advised the brides to use it on their husbands if they turn alcoholic or harass them and refuse to mend their ways.

The gifted mogri even bears the caption 'sharabiyon ke sutara hetu bhent, police nahi bolegi' (gift for beating drunkards, police will not intervene).

Gopal Bhargava, the state minister of panchayati raj and rural development, gifted