ROHTAK: Less than 100 km from Delhi, smooth roads take you to Sanghi, the village where Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was born. There are pucca houses, cobbled streets, well-fed cattle, neat schools and sprawling green fields. It's easy to be impressed by the colleges and professional institutes that dot the area.

But Sanghi, like most villages in this prosperous belt, has dark secrets to keep. Here, rape is casual, murder-by-pesticide of teenage daughters acceptable and it is routine to dispose of their bodies by burning them in cattle-carts. Here, young women are routinely threatened, abused and killed. Standard khap operating procedure?

In Sanghi, flush with development, khap rule has been the norm. The village women want the status quo to be maintained, uncertain of a life without khap decrees. "With mobile phones and television, milna-julna (interaction between the sexes) is too much. What can parents do except kill a daughter who disobeys?" says a local teacher defensively.

Girls who survive their mother's womb are brought up as daughters of the village. Not just Sanghi's daughters, but of 12 neighbouring villages, says a khap member. All 12 villages form the Khidwali Bara khap, a Jat territorial unit. It decrees that boys and girls within these 12 villages cannot marry. Interestingly, the entire onus of 'siblinghood' rests on the girl. She is the keeper of village honour. Exceptions may be made for a boy, if the khap decides, but a girl is never allowed to bend the rules. "If a girl married in her community's villages, she will be in purdah in her own house. How can we allow that?" asks middle-aged Bedo.. (originally published in Times of India)