By Omar Rashid
New Delhi: A 14-year-old Dalit boy was allegedly not only forced to drink urine by some dominant caste Thakur men in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur district but was also booked under charges of sexual harassment on the complaint of those who assaulted and humiliated him.
The Dalit boy’s family told The Wire they felt the FIR under sexual harassment was lodged against him, within 33 minutes of his own complaint against the alleged atrocity being registered, to deter them from pursuing the legal case. The Wire also spoke to the accused dominant caste men. They denied the allegation that they forced the boy to drink urine and accused the Dalit family of “misusing” provisions of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 to cover up the boy’s alleged offence of sexually harassing a girl from their family.
On November 24, an FIR was lodged at Sujanganj police station in Jaunpur at 7:30 pm on the complaint of Brijesh Gautam, who accused a Thakur father-son duo and other unidentified men of assaulting his teenage son. The incident happened on November 23. Gautam alleged that the accused persons thrashed his son, abused him with casteist slurs, forced him to drink urine from a glass and then shaved off his left eyebrow.
According to the police complaint, on November 23, at around 10 am, the teenage boy was returning home to his village Asropur after dropping his friend at a crossing on a cycle when the accused persons Aditya Singh, his father Ashok Kumar Singh alias Bablu Singh, and two others abused him near a petrol pump. Aditya Singh, 18, who runs a tractor for a living, threatened to run over the teenage boy with his farming vehicle, Gautam alleged in the FIR.
The accused persons then took him to an isolated location, a forest area one km away from the petrol pump, where they assaulted and humiliated him, Gautam alleged.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here .