A villager being taken for the strip parade in Ajmer. (PTI)

New Delhi, Sept. 11: You could call it a lie-detector test before the gods.

Over 500 men stripped down to their innerwear and trooped before an idol of Kali in a Rajasthan village to find a rapist.

The belief was that the rapist would confess as it was impossible to lie in front of the goddess. Last night’s strip-and-search was organised by the Boraj panchayat in Ajmer.

The incident comes weeks after a Haryana panchayat annulled the marriage of a couple because they were from the same gotra and snatched their baby. On Monday, a Bihar mob gouged out the eyes of three bike snatchers.

In the Rajasthan village, though, it was all about “investigation”.

“There is a tradition that the whole village offers to be part of a probe if any crime is committed,” Tara Singh, who heads the panchayat, said.

So, when the disfigured body of Geeta Rawat was found on a hillock near the village, no exceptions were made. All men between 10 and 60 took the “divine” test.

The 35-year-old, killed over the weekend, was stabbed to death with a sharp instrument and possibly raped, though it is yet to be confirmed by the local police.

Geeta Rawat (PTI)

“We wanted to know who was responsible. She was our daughter and we had to know if one of us was guilty,” Singh said.

Geeta’s face had been slashed and her hand fractured, leading villagers to deduce that the culprit would have been scarred as the woman tried to resist the attack.

“We took off our clothes in front of Chamunda Mata (as the goddess is called in the village). It would have been obvious if any one of us was responsible,” one villager said.

Ajmer police chief S. Shengthir said no complaint had been received against the strip parade but believed it was not forced. The panchayat also said the search was “voluntary”.