A Dalit man in Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district was brutally assaulted, stripped naked, and paraded by the husband and relatives of a woman from an upper-caste Hindu community over an alleged extramarital affair.
The incident took place on Tuesday in Vadol village, near Idar town. Videos of the 32-year-old man being attacked by a group were widely circulated on social media.
Sabarkantha Superintendent of Police Vijay Patel confirmed that authorities reached out to the victim after the video surfaced online. “We contacted the victim after the video went viral on Wednesday,” Patel told the news agency. Following this, a First Information Report (FIR) was registered against the woman’s husband and his relatives based on the victim’s complaint.
According to The Indian Express, the FIR includes multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, covering voluntarily causing hurt, kidnapping, unlawful assembly, rioting, collective liability for unlawful assembly, dacoity, insult with intent to breach peace, and criminal intimidation. Additionally, sections from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were also invoked. By Thursday evening, fifteen persons were booked, and nine had been detained, said Idar Police Inspector Chetan Rathod.
The victim, a married man with two children, stated in the FIR that he earned a living by transporting construction workers. It was at a construction site that he first met the woman, The Indian Express quoted unidentified police officers as saying. According to his statement, on Wednesday night around 11 pm, he had stepped out of a cold storage facility, where he was grading potatoes, to prepare tea. At that moment, the woman’s husband, Sanjay Ishwar Thakor, along with several others, arrived at the location and began calling out his name.
He attempted to flee but was caught, verbally abused, and physically assaulted. The FIR further stated that he was dragged near a temple and shown an alleged photograph of himself with the woman. “They let him off only after making him sign an apology letter,” Superintendent Patel said, confirming that the victim was severely beaten and had to be hospitalized.
However, due to fear, the victim initially misled doctors about the cause of his injuries. “No medico-legal case was filed at that time since the victim [out of fear] had lied to the doctors, claiming he sustained the injuries after falling down the stairs,” Patel added.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com.