Lucknow: A borewell owner and his son who were booked for beating up a Dalit woman in Banda, Uttar Pradesh, for drawing water from their borewell first hurled casteist slurs at her, hit her with a stick and then pushed the 42-year-old into a nearby field, her husband alleged Tuesday.
Responding to allegations of inaction, Jaspura police told ThePrint that the FIR was delayed because of the “preliminary inquiry” it conducted to ascertain the facts of the case. They also said the woman appeared for the medical examination Saturday, adding to the delay.
“My wife, with four other women and a man from Kumhariya Dera village, had gone to sow rice in the paddy belonging to Chandrashekhar Singh. The labourers water the fields using a borewell which belongs to Chandrashekhar’s brother Rajendra Pratap Singh. While on the job, she felt thirsty and went to drink water from the same borewell around noon on 6 August,” Puttu Sonkar, 44, told ThePrint.
According to him, as soon as his wife, Sita Devi, picked up a lota, Rajendra, who was sitting on a charpoy with his son Jitendra Pratap Singh near the borewell, got up and chastised her for touching the water container.
“He told her that she could not pick up the container or drink from it because she belonged to a lower caste and started abusing my wife. My wife objected to it saying that she would clean the container and there was no need for him to abuse her. She told him ‘zyaada Thakurai mat dikhao apne bore pe’ (don’t resort to casteism at your borewell). At this, his son, Jitendra picked up a stick and hit her on the back. When my wife fought back, Rajendra held her by the neck and pushed her into a rice field,” he alleged.
Sonkar said he was given a portion of land to sow rice on a profit-sharing basis by Chandrashekhar Singh.
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