The Dalit man is shown being brutally flogged by two men in the disturbing footage, which was tweeted this morning by Gujarat legislator, Jignesh Mevani
- A Dalit couple in Gujarat allegedly beaten; husband dies, wife is critical
- Gujarat lawmaker Jignesh Mevani tweeted the video, allegedly from Rajkot
- Five people have reportedly been caught
The mercilessly beating, to death of a Dalit man, bound by ropes around his waist, is the latest incident, video-taped and circulated, revealing again how media is being used to spread news about crude violence. The video clip allegedly from Gujarat’s Rajkot district. The man died after the savage beating that took place reportedly on the orders of an auto-parts factory owner, according to the police complaint. His wife was allegedly beaten up too.
The man, identified as Mukesh Vaniya, winces and screams as he is flogged by two men in the disturbing footage tweeted this morning by Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani.
“Mr Mukesh Vaniya belonging to a scheduled caste was miserably thrashed and murdered by factory owners in Rajkot and his wife was brutally beaten up,” he tweeted with the hashtag #GujaratIsNot Safe4Dalits.
Five people, including the factory owner, have been arrested on charges of murder and under the law on atrocities against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. “We have arrested five people, including the factory owner. I cannot reveal his name yet as it’s not mentioned in the FIR (first information report). A murder case has been filed under the SC/ST Act and a deputy rank officer will probe the case,” Rajkot senior police officer Shruti Mehta said.
On Sunday morning, Mukesh Vaniya and his wife, both rag-pickers, were using magnets to look for scrap when some factory workers confronted them, accusing them of theft. The woman escaped to get help from their village nearby. By the time she returned with some people, Vaniya was prone on the ground. He was pronounced dead in the hospital.
Jignesh Mevani’s post describes the incident as “worse than the 2016 Una attack“, in which four Dalits were stripped and thrashed by cow vigilantes while they were skinning a cow that had been electrocuted.
“This is a far more gruesome incident than Una. In Una, the victims were beaten up and humiliated. Whereas, here a man lost his life amidst caste violence… The government of Gujarat has still not learned from its past mistakes,” Mr Mevani wrote on Facebook.
The Una incident provoked protests by the community and led to the prominence of Dalit leaders like Jignesh Mevani, who contested and won in the Gujarat election last year.