The reprieve to love couple Umar-Priyanka has brought the polie and administration on the backfoot. The Mumbai High Court held the marriage as legal and refrained the police from arresting the couple.
The Bhopal police officials who had illegally kept Umar's brother in illegal detention for five days, are now running for cover. The court decision has come as a savior for the other couple Rehan and Neetu, again a Muslim boy and Sindhi girl, who ran away after the first couple.
(Bajrang Dal and Hindu Kanya Bachao Samiti activists protesting in Bhopal)
The police and administration that earlied seemed to act as per the directions of the Saffron brigade and harassing the families of eloped teenagers has now changed its stance. On television channels the Bhopal police officials IG Sanjeev Singh and DIG Anuradha Shankar Singh had a lot to answer for the early statements of police officials denying illegal detention of Shakeel.
The entire top police brass kept lying but they were exposed due to a cell phone clip showing Shakil in police station. Ironically senior IPS officers went against the law in the State capital in this case. The role of Sindhi Panchayat has also come in for sharp criticism from various quarters.
The Central Sindhi Panchayat of Bhopal on Wednesday issued the diktat that the community should not let their girls use cell phones, drive two-wheelers and cover their faces. The Panchayat fears that two-wheelers give girls freedom and mobile phones lead to friendship.
By covering the face the girls go along with any youth and nobody can spot them, fears the Panchayat members. Girls have however reacted strongly and said that restrictions on girls alone can't be tolerated. At Bhopal's Nutan College, girl students expressed outrage over the diktat and criticised it.
