New Delhi: A social panchayat in a village in Haryana’s Hisar district on Sunday (September 20) passed a “resolution” against love marriages and said that those who enter into such unions with people from the same village will face a social boycott, reported Hindustan Times.The panchayat, which has no official mandate and is not elected, was attended by around 1,000 villagers of the Arya Nagar village in Hisar. It was also proposed in the panchayat that similar action should be taken against family members of such persons and others who support love marriages.It was decided that a committee will conduct a door-to-door campaign to ascertain the villagers’ views on the ban.“We consider every girl in the village our own daughter. A new practice has emerged that we believe is against our longstanding social customs, and the entire village has come together to oppose it,” said Bhajan Lal, a villager, reported HT.According to locals, the “resolution” against love marriages was passed in the panchayat after three instances came up in recent months wherein couples from the same village tied the knot. The panchayat was held under the chairmanship of Kulwant Gosla, a village elder.Distancing himself from the social panchayat, Arya Nagar’s elected sarpanch Rattan Singh said that the elected panchayat had no role in the decision.Singh, who was also among those to attend the social panchayat, said that the decision was taken after the village recently witnessed three such marriages, where two of the couples were from different castes and one was from the same caste.Hisar superintendent of police Siddhant Jain told HT that he will look into the matter. Jain added that that police will ensure the safely and security of such couples.Senior advocate of the Punjab and Haryana high court Kamal Anand told the newspaper that consenting adults have a fundamental right under Article 21 to choose their life partners.He added that panchayat diktats imposing social boycotts have no legal validity and can invite criminal and statutory action.The Wire had reported in 2023 that a report by the Dalit Human Rights Defenders Network (DHRDNet), in collaboration with the National Council for Women Leaders (NCWL) had revealed that so-called “honour killings” are more prevalent across India than what is reported in the official statistics and by mainstream media.Besides being underreported, these crimes are also often categorised under offences such as murders, injuries, and kidnappings, making it difficult to identify and study the real cause and nature of these crimes.The report had analysed the granular details of caste-based honour killings from seven states – Haryana, Gujarat, Bihar, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.The report looked at 24 cases between 2012 and 2021 and in almost all the cases, the victims/survivors have faced extreme violence from members of the family who opposed the relationship or marriage.