A 14-year-old Dalit boy was assaulted by four members of the dominant Darbar community for sitting in a chair in their presence at a hotel in Banaskantha district, near Ahmedabad. A 19-year-old Dalit that tried to intervene was beaten up as well.

Image Courtesy: dnaindia.com



The younger child was a Class 9 student from the village of Zerda, in the Deesa taluka and belonged to a Scheduled Caste (SC).

The Times of India reported that as per the FIR filed with Deesa rural police, four men of the Darbar community — Vijubha Darbar, Sangarsinh Darbar, Vanrajsinh Darbar and Hurajsinh Darbar — all of around 20 years, stopped the boy when he was returning from his tuition class.

They angrily asked him how he dared to sit on a chair at a hotel in their presence. Before the boy could understand what was happening, the four began abusing them and then began to thrash him while hurling casteist slurs at him in response to his protests.

Sahdev Dabhi, the older teen, saw the boy was being thrashed by the four men when he was out to buy milk. When he asked the four men to leave, the men began hurling caste-based abuses at Sahdev as well and began to assault him too!

When the two screamed and some villagers rushed to help them, the four men threatened to kill Sahdev and the boy and left.

Sahdev’s father Popat, a farmer, told Times of India, “The two were beaten so badly that they can’t sit or walk properly. There were two incidents of atrocities reported in Zerda village earlier too, but no one filed complaints.”

Both of them are presently admitted in the Deesa Government Hospital where they are being treated.

The hotspot of caste-based atrocities

Cases of Scheduled Caste-based atrocities are witnessed in Ahmedabad very frequently.

On November 6, a video went viral of a Dalit man being stripped and thrashed by the owner of a roadside eatery and three others near the Sabarmati booth. The video of the brawl shows four men using sticks to beat the Dalit man, who was rolling on the surface without a shirt.

On July 9, a 25-year-old Dalit was hacked to death by his in-laws, incidentally also belonging to the Darbar community, in Varmora, Ahmedabad.

Jignesh Mevani, the independent MLA from Vadgam, told the Times that Banaskantha district records the highest number of atrocities in the state. “Neither the SP, nor district collector and nor the mamlatdars ever visit the site of atrocities. This approach of the state gives encouragement to casteist elements to conduct atrocities upon SC community members,” he said.

On Monday, another Dalit atrocity was reported from Botad district in Gujarat. Amitbhai Jerambhai Parmar, a Dalit RTI activist and social worker was reportedly attacked by men belonging to upper caste while he was returning to his home in Khopala village, Garhda taluka.



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