The children were beaten for defecating in front of a panchayat building in Shivpuri district. (Representational image) The children were beaten for defecating in front of a panchayat building in Shivpuri district. (Representational image)

Two Dalit children were allegedly beaten to death for defecating in the open in a village in Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday.

The police have arrested two brothers Hakim Yadav and Rameshwar Yadav, who belong to the same Bhavkhedi village under Sirsod Police Station, for beating to death Roshni, 12, and her 10-year-old nephew Avinash.

Avinash’s father Manoj Valmiki told the police that the two brothers objected to the children defecating in the open near the panchayat building. He said he does not have a toilet at his home, and alleged that the two brothers had scolded the children in the past too.

Manoj, a labourer, said he had an old enmity with the brothers. He said two years ago he had cut the branch of a tree near the agriculture field owned by the Yadav brothers after which they had threatened him with dire consequences.

Inspector General (Gwalior Range) Rajababu Singh, however, told The Indian Express that Hakim is mentally unstable and he killed the two children while they were on way to their grandfather’s home.

“When the children were passing from his house he attacked them with sticks. The incident has nothing to do with open defecation and there is no old enmity between the two families,” Singh said.

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