After furore, Maharashtra cops arrest two for attacks on Dalit boys

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, June 15

Maharashtra Government said on Friday that two people were booked on suspicions of forcing three Dalit boys to strip and parade naked in Jalgaon district last Sunday.

Social Justice Minister Dilip Kamble and Water Resources Minister Girish Mahajan, who were on damage control duty in absence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, said two people were booked under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, among other laws.

A complaint with the state police said that the three boys, aged 12-14, were swimming in a village well on Sunday, but upper caste residents of the Wakhadi village pulled them out, beat them and paraded them naked around the village.

Videos of the incident uploaded on social media show the boys covering themsleves with branches while being beaten with sticks and belts. The children’s parents have filed police complaints against several villagers.

The incident has been compared to the incident at Una in Gujarat, where Dalits were brutally assaulted by upper-caste people.
"The sole crime of these Dalit children was they were taking a dip in 'upper caste' well. Humanity is struggling to save its dignity," Congress president Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet on the incident on Friday, blaming righ-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party for atrocities against Dalits.

Following Gandhi's messages on Twitter, Congress leaders from Maharashtra said they were visiting the families of the three boys.

Union Minister for Social Welfare Ramdas Athawale, who heads his own faction of the Republican Party of India, said that he would also visit the village to meet the victims and their families.