Five Dalit children ‘stripped, thrashed’ for plucking radish

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 13

Five Dalit children were allegedly stripped naked and thrashed by a farmer from Sohina Kalan village near here as they had plucked radish from his field on Sunday.

A villager recorded a video in which the children, all baptised Sikhs, accused Ashurbanpal Singh Latti (37) of assaulting them.

In the video, which has gone viral, the children alleged that Latti also forced them to run for almost 3 km towards Bal village while he chased them on a scooter.

Sukhdev Singh, grandfather of two of the children, said, “The kids were chasing kites. They rushed to Latti’s fields when a kite landed there. One of them uprooted a radish plant. Infuriated, Latti forced the children to remove their clothes. He also hit them on their backs.”

Later that day, the farmer’s family returned the clothes to the children.

Latti’s father SS Gill said, “The children were ruining the radish and turnip crops daily. On Sunday, Latti saw them in the field and called them. However, the children started taunting him and ran toward the drain of Bal village. He followed them and tried to teach them that committing theft was a sin for baptised Sikhs. They removed clothes on their own.”

He admitted that the mothers of the children had later taken the clothes back.

“I have apologised to their parents. Some miscreants are trying to give a casteist colour to the episode. They are targeting us because we are Akalis,” Gill said.

Majitha SHO Mohit Kumar claimed that he was unaware of the incident.