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RAIPUR: A panchayat in Chhattisgarh's tribal Jashpur district forced parents of three raped girls - two of whom are minor siblings - into a "compromise" with the accused on July 5, and then feasted with the money the trio coughed up to bury the cases.

The panchayat fined the three accused Rs 10,000 each, invited the entire village to a meat feast and distributed the rest of the money equally among 45 people of the community on Sunday. Justice done, they declared.

The families of the raped girls were far from satisfied. One of them went to the media. Jashpur ASP Uneza Khatoon Ansari said no one had filed a complaint and they came to know of it from journalists. A police team has been sent to the village, which is in a remote part of Jashpur.

Sources told TOI that the families of the three girls went looking for them when they didn't return home till evening on July 5. By then, a village youth had come across the shocking sight of them being raped by three men. He challenged them and forced them to flee.

The parents took the girls home and were heading to the police station when they were called to a meeting by community heads. The father of the raped sisters insisted he would file an FIR. But this upset the panchayat, which allegedly forced him to drop the idea and arranged a "compromise".

As if this wasn't humiliation enough, the girls' families were shocked to know that the panchayat had organised a grand feast with the "fine money" and invited the villagers to a "mutton party".

The father of one of the survivors said 45 persons got Rs 485 each from the "compromise" money. "Is my daughter's rape worth that much, or any amount of money," he asked.

Sarpanch Narayan Bhagat defended himself, saying that the girls and boys were found in a "compromising situation" and apologised for their "mistake". "The girls' families called the meeting and willingly agreed to the compromise," he claimed. The families deny this.

