BASTI: A teenage boy and a girl were paraded with a garland of footwear around their necks and faces blackened for apparently having an affair in a village in Basti district of Uttar Pradesh, police said on Wednesday.
After a video of the incident that took place in the Gaur police station area on Tuesday went viral, police swung into action and arrested 15 people.
According to some villagers, the boy and the girl belonging to the Dalit community were accosted and brought before a village panchayat, which pronounced that they be paraded in the village and publicly shamed.
No one in the village objected to the panchayat decision, they said.
"It is an unfortunate incident. They belong to the same community," Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Dipendra Chowdhary said.
Superintendent of Police Ashish Srivastava said an FIR has been registered against 15 people under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on a complaint by the boy's mother.
The police officer investigating the case said security has been provided to the families of the boy and the girl and that police personnel have been deployed in the village to prevent any flare-up.