Dalit marries Patel girl, his family driven out

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AHMEDABAD: When Vishal Chavda, a dalit boy, married his childhood friend Khushbu Patel, who hails from Dhinoj village of Patan district, they were very happy until his family members were forced by the affluent Patidar community to flee.
Vishal Chavda, 21, had married Khushbu Patel, 21, on November 16 in a court in Ahmedabad to avoid conflict with the village's Patidar community. But as the family members of Khushbu came to know that their girl had eloped with a dalit boy, they started threatening the dalit family with dire consequences.
Vishal's father Ishwar Chavda had to approach the police pleading to file an FIR against the girl's family members. In his complaint before the state DGP, P P Pandey, Chavda wrote, "On November 16, Ganpat Patel (Khushbu's father) threatened me saying that they will burn down my house along with my entire family. Ganpat Patel threatened us that if we want to live, we will have to leave the village."


Chavda said in the complaint that he had on November 18 approached Patan police thinking that Vishal was missing but the cops told him that his son had got married with Khushbu.
After Patel threatened Chavda, he along with his six family members had to flee the village. They had not returned till Friday.
Kaushik Parmar, a Mehsana-based rights activist who gave shelter to the family, said that the dalit family was living in fear as it was getting threats from the Patels of the village.
"I had kept them with myself till Thursday but they left my house when I had gone somewhere this morning. Since then their whereabouts are not known. People of their village have not seen them nor are their phones reachable," Parmar said.

p-4...The Times of India...26 Nov 2016

forced to flee, threatened...