‘Give My Son Justice’: Father of Dalit Boy Beaten to Death Over a ‘Spelling Mistake’ in Uttar Pradesh (Two Circles)

By Aliza Noor / Two Circles

Raju Kumar Dohre, a thirty-six years-old dalit man from Uttar Pradesh, found himself at a loss for words to talk about his child. “We didn’t think such a thing would happen to our child in a safe space like school,” Raju told Two Circles. His 15-year-old son, Nikhit Kumar Dohre succumbed to injuries 19 days after being brutally beaten by his teacher over a minor mistake.

This incident of caste-based violence which took place in Auraiya district, has sparked outrage in the state. According to Raju, Nikhit, a class 10 student in Adarsh inter-college in Achalda area of Auraiya, had misspelled ‘samaajik’ in Hindi in a social science test supervised by his teacher Ashwini Singh.

“On 7 September, there was a test which Nikhil had studied for. He came back home bawling. He told us what the teacher did, there were marks of a stick on his back and the teacher had even pulled hair off of his head. He was punched, kicked, and beaten to a point that he fell unconscious in school,” Raju said.

Raju is a laborer whose work involves working on bricks and mortar. He has two other sons, aged 8 and 3.

Meanwhile, Mahendra Pratap Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Bidhuna in Auraiya said that “everything is under control” and that the “accused will be caught soon.”

“Not Easy Filing FIR”

Raju pointed out that he had a hard time when he went to file the FIR against the teacher. “It was not easy filing the FIR, when we went to the police station, the official refused to take the complaint saying it had faults. Then we tried again but to no avail. I had to call up the control room and go back and forth a couple of times before they agreed to file the FIR,” alleged Raju.

Filed on the 24 September at Achalda police station, the FIR is filed against Ashwini Singh under IPC sections 308 (Attempt to commit culpable homicide), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and the SC/ST Act.

This story was originally published in twocircles.net . Read the full story here

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