Tuensang court sentences 8 women to prison for publicly humiliating woman

According to a report in The Hindu, a court in Tuensang District in Nagaland has sentenced a group of 8 women to a year in jail for publicly humiliating a woman in 2018. The court of judicial magistrate first class also fined the group ₹3,000 for the offense under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

In 2018, after finding a woman guilty of an extra-marital affair by a local kangaroo court, these eight women had chopped off the woman’s hair, stripped, and paraded her naked on the road.

The court observed that the victim did have an extra-marital affair, but the villagers took matters into their own hands and meted out “inhumane justice” in their kangaroo court.

“…the village folk asserting the so-called rights given unto them by the customary law outraged the modesty of the victim in the most barbaric fashion,” the court said in its order.

“It is such an inconceivable fact to even think that the womenfolk would go to the extent of chopping off a lady’s hair, stripping her, and parading her naked on the roadside,” the court noted.

The eight women, in their defense statement, had said that their village had passed a resolution in 2018 to punish adulterous women according to the customary practices.