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Widow paraded for petty theft

Hajipur (Bihar): A 55-year-old widow in Bihar's Vaishali district was paraded on the road after her head was tonsured allegedly by a rich farmer and the local mukhiya's husband on the charge of stealing a few bananas, officials sources said on Tuesday.

Desri Devi, who begs to make her both ends meet, was alleged to have been caught red-handed stealing bananas from the field of a farmer Dinesh Rai at Balua-Basant village on Friday night, official sources said.

Desri was dragged to the house of the local mukhiya (panchayat head) where she was slapped a fine of Rs 2,500 by the panchayat chief's husband Satyanarayan Chaurasia, himself a former mukhiya.

As the hapless widow whose husband had died about a decade ago expressed inability to pay the fine, a local barber was summoned and her hair shaved.

"Some people wanted me to be stripped and then paraded on the streets, but others stopped them from doing that. Still, I was paraded in the lanes of the village for no fault of mine," she said in the FIR lodged with the Lalganj police station on Sunday in which 10 people including Dinesh Rai and Chaurasia were accused.

The woman was known to be suffering from somnambulism and had sleep-walked to the banana field where she was caught by the night-watchman that night, District Magistrate Lallan Singh and SP Anupama S. Nilekar who visited the village yesterday said. The main accused, Dinesh Rai, was arrested, police said. Meanwhile, the DM has asked the BDO of Lalganj to sanction a house to her. -- PTI

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Widow paraded for petty theft

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