In a separate incident, a college vice-principal of a college has been accused of beating up three Dalit students for drinking from a common water dispenser.
Published Dec 03, 2022 | 2:39 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 03, 2022 | 5:43 PM
In a separate incident, a college vice-principal of a college has been accused of beating up three Dalit students for drinking from a common water dispenser.
Let’s face it. Dalits are still facing overt discrimination in 21st-century India.
Going by recent incidents, where a boy was fined for touching a pole that supported a deity during a temple festival, and a water tank being “purified” with cow urine after a lower-caste woman drank from it, untouchability still haunts present-day society.
The latest in the series came on Wednesday, 30 November, when four men allegedly showered casteist slurs on a 23-year-old man, tied him to a tree and assaulted him in public.
The alleged reason was the youth, a Dalit, overtook the two-wheelers of a “caste” villager.
Unable to bear the humiliation, the man, Udaya Kiran, died by suicide near his farmhouse at Bevahalli village in Karnataka’s Kolar district, the deceased victim’s uncle and guardian Nagaraju reportedly told the police.
The police, however, have a different version.
Farmer Nagaraju, 42, had adopted his uncle’s son Uday Kiran when the latter was a child. The farmer told the police that Kiran had gone to Byrakoor village to buy some farm products around 4 pm on that fateful day.
While passing through Pethandlahalli village he overtook the motorcycle of one Raju Gopalakrishnappa, a local Vokkaliga villager.
The overtaking took an ugly turn when Raju Gopalakrishnappa and his associate Shivaraj Munivenkatappa confronted him, which soon escalated into a physical fight. As the men exchanged blows, the villagers intervened and sent them away, Nagaraju said in his police complaint.
The issue, however, was far from over. Kiran took a different route to return home, oblivious to the fact that his rivals, along with two other associates, were waiting for him.
The men waylaid Kiran and took away his bike key and mobile phone. They asked him to bring some seniors from his village for talks.
Outnumbered, Kiran boarded a goods carrier to return to Bevahalli. He, however, changed his mind and went back to Pethandlahalli, demanding his motorbike and mobile phone.
The young man’s defiance angered Raju, Shivaraj and their fathers Gopalakrishnappa and Munivenkatappa. They allegedly showered casteist slurs on him for creating a “nuisance” in their village, tied Kiran to a tree and assaulted him.
The men then summoned Nagaraju to the spot. He spoke to the alleged assaulters and took Kiran back with him.
Later that night, Kiran went missing. Nagaraju and others launched a search and found the youth hanging from a tree. He did not leave behind a death note, the police later said.
The Nangali police registered a case based on Nagaraju’s complaint even as the four suspects went missing. After a preliminary probe, investigators said it could be a case of road rage.
They have been charged with abetment to suicide, assault, wrongful confinement, and intentional insult under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and other sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act 2015.
“We have taken up the case seriously and have definite clues about the absconding accused persons’ whereabouts. They will be arrested at the earliest,” D Devaraj, Superintendent of Police, Kolar, told South First.
The police said that Kiran was on bail in a murder case registered in 2019. He was then arrested for rioting that ended in the murder in Nangali police limits.
Police sources also said Kiran had dangerously sped through Pethandlahalli in an SUV on 30 November and the vehicle had brushed against the bike of a suspect.
The investigators said the suspects targeted Kiran for the earlier incident while he was riding his bike.
In a separate incident, a vice-principal of a private college in Kolar allegedly assaulted three Dalit students for drinking water from a common water dispenser kept in the principal’s chamber on Friday, 2 December.
The students went to the principal’s chamber on the first floor since the water dispenser on the ground floor had gone dry.
Seeing the students drinking water, the vice-principal thrashed them with a fibre pipe. The students suffered injuries in the incident.
Teachers and occasionally students used to drink from the dispenser kept in the principal’s chamber.
The vice-principal reportedly told a teacher who had intervened that SC/ST students should know where to drink water.
Education Minister BC Nagesh said he would speak to the college authorities and the local police and initiate action against the offender.
The police, however, said that they were awaiting a complaint from either the students or their parents to register a case.
