Bajrang Dal leader hauled up for abducting women who married outside the community

(The Telegraph
March 20, 2007
SC notice to Bajrang Dal leader
OUR LEGAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, March 19: The Supreme Court today issued notice to Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and several members of a trust he heads for allegedly abducting Patel women from Gujarat who had married outside their community and forcing them to remarry.

The notice, also sent to the Gujarat and Maharashtra governments, came on petitions by a number of people who said their wives had been abducted by activists of the Navchetan trust.

Ajay Nikam, Raju Medige, Prashant Samudre and several others had moved the apex court after Bombay High Court had dismissed their petitions seeking a directive to authorities to produce their missing wives.

The high court, they said, had dismissed their plea though an inquiry it ordered had indicted Bajrangi, a Patel who wants to keep his community pure, and recommended registration of an FIR against him.

The inquiry report, by a senior police officer, stated that the women said they were living separately from their husbands voluntarily but the “consent appeared to be under pressure”.

The petitioners said the victims refused to testify against the trust in open court as they were accompanied by dozens of activists. One aggrieved husband said his wife was placed under house arrest and then the activists “arranged a divorce” and forced him to sign some papers.