A happily married couple in Haryana has been told to regard each other as brother and sister by a council of similar caste villages which decreed their marriage was unacceptable on social grounds. In Sunday's bizarre ruling in Asanda, Jhajjar, near Delhi, a Rathee khap panchayat ordered Rampal and Sonia, who is three-months pregnant, to terminate their marriage of one-and-a-half years. The panchayat, comprising elders from three villages, said there was "bhaichara" (brotherhood) between members of Rampal's gotra Dahiya (a sub-caste in the Jat community) and Sonia's Rathee gotra. The unwritten social code in the state forbids them from marrying each other, the elders ruled. The "sin" could be undone only if they accepted each other as siblings. That Sonia was happily married to Rampal and was even carrying his child had no effect on the elders, who said they delayed the decision because of "confusion" over Sonia's gotra.| [Channeling Fred]: Ohfergawdsake. |
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