(Representative Image)

Hubballi: A barber trimming the hair of a person in Haveri district stopped his job midway and shooed the customer away after learning he is a dalit. The incident took place in Ranebennur's Itagi village recently. Ranebennur is about 300km northwest of Bengaluru.

The customer was visiting a family in Itagi, and the barber came to know his caste during a chat. Immediately, the barber asked him to leave his place. The customer had his hair partially cut by then. He travelled to the nearest town, Harihar, about an hour's drive, to get the job completed.

This is not unusual in Itagi, which has seen fractious ties between dalits and hairdressers. After a skirmish in the 1990s, village barbers don't give dalits a haircut.

The customer brought this incident to the notice of a friend, also a dalit, and the latter alerted zonal police seeking action against the barber. A dalit organization, too, raised the issue of ill-treatment with police and the social welfare department.

A team of tahsildar, social welfare officers and police personnel visited the village and held a meeting to resolve the issue, but to no avail. The Itagi hairdressers refused to blink and said they will not welcome dalits.

After the incident, all the five salons in the village have downed their shutters. To preempt further trouble, a police contingent has been stationed in the village.

Prakash Pujar, a dalit leader, told TOI the trouble started 20 years in the village with 70 dalit families. Vasanth HC, a police sub-inspector from Halageri station, said resolution efforts will continue.

Ranebennur tahsildar Ramamurthy said barbers should make no distinction on the basis of caste or religion. "We held the meeting with barbers in the presence of villagers, including dalits. We will hold a second meeting in the next couple of days. If they continue to remain adamant, then we will file a case against them for trying to cause disturbance in society," he said.

