In an absolutely bizarre case, a man ended his marriage just after two days when his wife failed in a virginity test. This incident took place in a village in Nashik district of Maharashtra state.

Maharashtra Women Commission has sought a probe report from Nashik police over this issue. The commission chief Vijaya Rahatkar told PTI that she has asked Nashik police commissioner to make an in-depth inquiry into the alleged incident and submit a report.

According to the reports, last month on May 22, the woman from Ahmednagar district, preparing to join police force, married a 25-year-old man from Nashik. Both belong to the ‘Kanajarbhat’ community, which has its own ‘constitution’ that is followed rigorously.

One of the weird traditions followed by the community is to check the virginity of the newly-married girl. When the bride fails in virginity test, the caste panchayat asks the couple to end their marriage. In order to check whether the girl is a virgin or not, the newly-wed couple is asked to have sex on white blanket. If they don’t find blood spot on the blanket after sex, the girl is not considered virgin.

The couple had gone through the same test and no blood spot was found next morning. The panchayat held that since she failed the ‘virginity test,’ the man can end the relationship in 48 hours if he deems so.

Hence, their marriage was summarily invalidated, despite the girl’s pleas that she was, in fact, a virgin and that her lack of bleeding could be due to the vigorous exercise she went through in preparation for the police force (The girl has been preparing for physical tests for recruitment in the police force and was involved in running, long jump, cycling and other exercises).

Shiv Sena leader and MLC Neelam Gorhe termed the episode as “mental and physical cruelty” against the woman. “Action can be taken against this even under current laws. We need more awareness to ensure such cases do not occur,” she said.

In the world where women are excelling and breaking stereotypes, it is an insult to put them through such test of sexual ‘purity’ to ascertain their character.