Haresh Kumar Solanki had sought help from a Women’s helpline to convince his father-in-law to let his two months pregnant wife to return. ( File) Haresh Kumar Solanki had sought help from a Women’s helpline to convince his father-in-law to let his two months pregnant wife to return. ( File)

A Dalit youth was hacked to death on Monday by his in-laws in Ahmedabad’s Varmor village even when he was escorted by a police team for negotiations with his pregnant wife’s parents, who belonged to an upper caste.

The deceased, identified as Haresh Kumar Solanki, a native of Kutch, had sought help from a Women’s helpline called Abhayam in order to convince his father-in-law to let his two months pregnant wife Urmila sinh to return with him to Kutch.

According to Bhavika, a woman counselor with 181 Abhayam helpline, who was in Varmor with the deceased youth on Monday evening, as many as eight persons attacked Haresh with swords, sticks, knives, and rods while he was sitting in the government vehicle outside the house of his in-laws.

Police have named eight persons as accused of the murder of Solanki in the first information report with Dashrathsinh Zala, father of Urmila, as prime accused.

“The victim had sought the help of 181 Abhayam teams in order to convince his in-laws to let his wife go back to Kutch with him. A woman constable was present with him at the spot but she was there to negotiate with the parents of the woman. We have made multiple teams to nab all the accused who remain on the run as of now. Accounts of eyewitnesses have also been taken into consideration so that the accused can be arrested at the earliest,” said PD Manvar, deputy superintendent of police, SC/ST Cell, Ahmedabad Rural.

According to Bhavika, she received a call around 12 pm on Monday from Haresh regarding counselling of his wife’s parents.

“I received a call from Haresh who asked me to reach Mandal bus stand around 4 pm on Monday so that a team could reach Varmor village with him to talk to Dashrathsinh and others. He said that his wife Urmila is two months pregnant and after marriage, she has been staying at her parents’ place.

When our team along with one police constable arrived at Mandal bus stand, we saw that Haresh had come with his mother Sushila Ben and a relative named Dhirubhai Bhadav. The team then arrived at Dashrathsinh’s house in the evening hours and a round of counseling began which lasted for 20 minutes,” Bhavika said.

In her complaint to the police, she said, “after the round of counseling ended with Dashrathsinh and Urmila, around 7 pm, we got out of the house and approached the car. At that moment, eight people along with Dashrathsinh arrived at the spot, forced Haresh to step out of the car and attacked him with swords, knives, sticks and rods. The Abhayam team was also attacked.”

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