“The brutal attack happened in front of several villagers, but nobody intervened,” says brother of a 22-year-old Dalit boy Ravindra who was killed by three upper caste Hindu men in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh on Wednesday.
The incident happened in Nagariya Bhood village of Harduaganj town in Aligarh district.
“He was parking his motorcycle when Rajbahadur, his son Anurag Singh and nephew Shibbu entered the house and claimed that Ravindra had stolen a 40 kg bag of wheat from their house. They used casteist slurs and kept beating him until he lost consciousness,” father of deceased told reporters.
Ravindra’s elder brother Prem Kishore said that the upper caste Hindu men slammed his brother on the ground multiple times and strangled him with his shirt leading to his death on the spot.
The cops who claimed that the Dalit boy was killed by three upper caste men on suspicion of stealing a bag of wheat, have registered a case of murder and invoked relevant sections of the SC/ST Act against the three accused named by the family of the victim. The main accused has been arrested.
Following the caste killing, members of the Azad Samaj Party and Bahujan Samaj Party reached the spot and demanded action against the asaliants.
The main accused was arrested on Thursday morning. Two of the accused are still absconding, according to a report in Hindi daily Amar Ujala.
The Dalit boy’s relatives did not allow police to take the body until the arrest of all accused. Later, senior police officials came to the spot, spoke to the family and sent the body for post-mortem.
This story first appeared on maktoobmedia.com