MUMBAI: While inaction over the gruesome murder of a Dalit family in Ahmednagar district a month ago has sparked worldwide protests, the police detained those protesting the incident on Friday morning at Ramabai Nagar in Ghatkopar . Incidentally, at the same area in 1997, Dalits were killed in police firing.

Global organizations are set to petition the United Nations to grant Dalits “special status”, similar to what was granted to Sikhs after the 1984 pogrom.

The incident that sparked the protests involved the murder of a teenage Mumbai college student Sunil Jadhav and his parents, Jayashree and Sanjay, whose mutilated body parts were found in a well in their village in Ahmednagar. Protests broke out over the incident across Maharashtra. The incident is reminiscent of the equally gruesome murder of three members of a Dalit family in Khairlanji.

“It’s shocking that the police, which has done nothing to catch those who killed the Jadhav family, picks up protesters within minutes,” said filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, who made a documentary exploring the plight of India’s Dalits. Ironically, a senior officer from Pant Nagar police station echoed Patwardhan’s sentiment on Friday. “Protesters told us that, if the Mumbai police could pick them up within minutes, why couldn’t the police act fast in rural areas when people are murdered,” he said.

While protests over the incident are being stifled in Mumbai, 150 people demonstrated against the massacre last weekend on the streets of New York and submitted a petition to the United Nations seeking intervention in the case.

