Lucknow, Jan. 11: Stung by the scorn that society rained on her for marrying a girl, Seeta drank poison. But it neither ended her life nor her woes.

The 19-year-old resident of Meerut was taken to hospital. But even as she lay on a bed writhing in pain, the abuses continued to pour outside.

Seeta went missing this afternoon and her 18-year-old “husband”, Vandana, has been locked inside her home.

Barely a month ago, couples ? all were heterosexuals and some of them were married ? perceived to be getting too amorous were beaten up by police in a park in Meerut.

This time, the public decided the lesbian couple was giving the city a bad name. An army of residents, with support from NGO Survi Parivar, staged demonstrations in front of the district magistrate’s office and the hospital where Seeta was admitted. “Stop perverse marriage, stop anti-social impulses,” they shouted.

The protesters also submitted a memorandum to the district administration and the police, demanding a probe.

Seeta and Vandana were colleagues in a hosiery-producing unit, where they met and fell in love. The girls ? both are from underprivileged families ? decided to tie the knot in a temple on Sunday.

“I loved Vandana. We reached a point when we thought without marriage, life was fruitless. So we got married,” Seeta told reporters this morning from her hospital bed.

When Seeta’s family got to know about the wedding, she was subjected to mental and physical abuse, the police said. Soon, word spread and her neighbours joined in the assault.

In Vandana’s house, the story was no different. After forcing her to describe the marriage as “a joke”, her parents put her under lock and key.

District magistrate Ram Krishnan has launched a probe into “the allegations of same-sex marriage and of provoking one of the girls to attempt suicide”.

This is not the first time Uttar Pradesh has displayed its intolerance of homosexuals. A few days ago, several of them were picked up during a crackdown in Lucknow.

In August last year, Kanpur had erupted when two women got married. The social ostracisation drove one of them to commit suicide, while her partner was stripped off her schoolteacher’s job.

Around the same time, Allahabad residents Shilpi and Usha were put behind bars for eloping and living together for six months. Out of jail, they were forced to stay apart by their parents.

“Indian law does not allow for same-sex marriage, but there is no law prohibiting same-sex cohabitation,” an advocate said.

But politicians in the state are not willing to look at laws. “We cannot convert our country into Lesbos,” Shiv Sena’s Vijay Kumar said, referring to the island from which the term lesbian has been coined.