ROHTAK: A panchayat in Haryana has banned dancing saying it leads to crime against women .

An elected panchayat in Jind district on Wednesday banned girls from taking part in dance competitions and programmes.

The Kinana village panchayat also warned schools against letting girl students participate in cultural activities which promote dancing.

Panchayat leaders said, "Dancing results in perversion of the mind, which in turn leads to incidents of crime against women like molestation and rape."

The decision to ban girls from dancing in functions was taken unanimously on Wednesday and the panchayat sent letters to two private and a government school on Thursday directing them not to organize cultural activities with dances.

Sources said that the people who handed over the letters also told the school heads to not make their girl students dance in school functions in future. "Our sisters and daughters are allowed and made to dance in the name of cultural activities in the schools. This is absolutely wrong and corrupting our youths," reads the signed resolution handed over to three schools of the area.

The village sarpanch Raja Ram said that the villagers were upset over a recent incident in which some people were found drinking in a school function where schoolgirls took part in dance programmes. "By allowing girls to dance on the stage you are just promoting the so–called liberalism which corrupts society and causes crime to grow especially against women," he said.

"We want the girls to get education and succeed in life but not dance on stage," he added.

"We have no option but to stick to their instructions. We organize cultural programmes and celebrate national functions like Republic Day and Independence Day", said the principal of one of the schools.

The district education officer Vandana Singh said that so far she had not received any complaint about instructions from the village panchayat. "I would definitely look into the matter as the schools have to organize functions as part of the extra curricular activities calendar and the villagers cannot interfere," she said.