Couple from Maharashtra faces social boycott

The villagers of the community say members of the same community can’t marry each other as according to them all members are brothers and sisters. But I do not believe in such diktat... I love her.

PALGHAR: Twenty-three-yearold Saurabh Jadhav and his newly wedded wife Gaurvi are facing social boycott from their community in Ratnagiri district’s Devrukh town.

Jadhav, who is now residing in a rented flat at in Vasai near Mumbai with his wife, parents and brother, said he is facing the boycott because in his village at Patgaon, men and women from for the same community cannot get married.

“The villagers of the community say members of the same community can’t marry each other as, according to them, all members are brothers and sisters. But I do not believe in such diktat and I married Gaurvi because I love her,” said Jadhav.

Devrukh police have booked 12 persons in the case, though no arrests have been made yet.

“We fear for our lives as the community members may harm my father Vijay, Gaurvi, brother Kaustubh and mother Sonali. We seek justice,” said Jadhav.

He works as an engineer in a private firm in Vasai, while Gaurvi, 22, also works in the same firm in another department.

They married on February 3 last year.

“As the news of my marriage reached Patgaon village in Devrukh, the elders had a meeting, during which it was decided that my family will be boycotted. Our community in Mumbai was also directed to boycott us and we have been socially ostracised. We are not invited to any functions, such as marriage, in our community or even allowed to purchase groceries from stores in Patgaon. My grandmother died on December 10 last year and my mother Sonali was banned from entering the village for the last rites, though she was her only daughter,” said Jadhav.

“The accused who issued the social boycott order are booked under the Maharashtra Protection of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2016, and sections 120(b) (conspiracy), 149 (unlawful assembly) and 153 (provocation to rioting) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC),” said senior inspector Nisha Jadhav of Devrukh police station.

“We are probing the case further,” she said.