On Thursday, a panchayat was held at the house of the accused

GREATER NOIDA: Shots were fired, death threats were made, a police case was filed and ultimately a panchayat was called to restore peace in Milak Khatana village of Jarcha over the past week. All this because an 18-year-old girl had driven a Royal Enfield over a few patriarchal notions of what women should, or should not, do.

Ritika Mavi, a student of class XI in the village school, had been learning how to ride ever since her father bought the bike a year ago. On the afternoon of August 31, when she was returning from a general store on the bike, she was stopped by two men almost double her age. They had been noticing her and didn’t like the “audacity” of a woman riding down the streets on a Royal Enfield. She didn’t like being told what to do either. There was an argument.

“They told her it doesn’t look good that a woman was riding a bike and asked her to stop immediately. When she did not budge, they threatened to harm her father,” said Manoj, Ritika’s uncle. “She came home and told us about the incident. But before we could do anything, the men arrived at our house,” he added.

Ritika’s father Sunil stood up for her and faced the men with a stern face. “I told them that it is our internal matter and our family has no problem with her riding a bike,” he shared. But things took an ugly turn when the two men — Sachin (30) and Kullu (28) — and two of their associates took out their guns. “After firing a few shots in the air to threaten me, they went upstairs to find my daughter. They shot at the ceiling as well and fled,” Sunil said in his complaint.

Sunil dialled 100 despite being warned by the men against it. The police lodged a case against Sachin, Kullu and the two others, who are unnamed, under sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 352 (assault or criminal force) and 425 (trespass) of the Indian Penal Code but made no arrests.

However, filing a case made Sunil’s family apprehensive of a retaliation as the accused men have a history of criminal activities. “We were worried that anything could happen to us. In fear, we installed CCTV cameras at the front gate of the house,” said Manoj. Eventually, on Thursday, a panchayat was called to resolve this. Held at the house of the accused where almost 50 men participated, the panchayat asked Ritika’s family to accept an apology and withdraw the case against the two men. “Two men from the family of the accused gave a written apology on behalf of the accused, they have promised us that this will never be repeated again in the future and the village has no problem with girls riding bike. On this condition, we agreed to compromise,” said Sunil. Ritika was not available for a comment.

Satish, a former pradhan in the village said the two parties were called to resolve the matter. “We have helped the families in resolving the matter; the victims will take the complaint back and the accused persons will not trouble them again,” he assured.

Police in Jarcha said they were not informed about the panchayat and the decision taken by it. “The people in the village shared no information about the panchayat with us, neither did they take permission. The accused are being tracked, they will be arrested soon,” said Anil Kumar, SHO of Jarcha, adding the accused men have a criminal history.

