1. Khaps or the so called village councils never order killings. Jats who are often confused with Khaps, do not marry in the same gotra as a long held custom. girls and boys from same gotra are considered like real brother and sisters. Marrying in the same gotra is considered highly immoral among Jats. Family members of such couple find it extremely difficult to face the society. People often chide on them. Under mental pressure the parents/ relatives of such couples often take extreme step of killing them. To avoid this, Jats want that the Hindu Marriage act should be amended. People from other parts of India might think that this demand of Jats a step in wrong direction, however, to Jats this is a highly emotive and sensitive issue.

2. I am really sorry that you had such rough experience in Shamli and other places during your trip. I was born in a village just next to Shamli and still maintain regular contact with the people over there. In fact I spend good deal of my time there. Let us accept that facilities like hotels etc are not yet developed in small towns like Shamli. Staying in hotels was not the part of rural and small size town Indian culture. A white man is still a rarity in most of rural India. Many of my white friends became an object of curiosity when they visited the area with me. Rural India is not on the International visitors highway. I am not really sure if people at Shamli would have harmed you and your friend. However, for any of your future trips to rural India I would advise that you have some known local person as your guide/ caretaker. Its always better to be the guest of someone locally and whom you know either directly or through some close friend. Hospitaly industry in rural India will take quite sometime.

3. We have a website Jatland.com and on that we have many threads on Khaps. If you get sometime, please go through. You will get a good picture of the whole thing and how people feel about it. I myself have initiated a thread titled, " Khaps and Urbanite India" under history section. You can get a good amount of information from the stuff we have posted over there

Rajendra