It has been days since two Dalit brothers Santram Dohra, and Sandeep Dohre, were beaten up, in Madhya Pradesh, and their home was set ablaze, because they refused to withdrawing a 2018 complaint against a difference in wage payment. However, outside of the ‘Dalit circles’ and community leaders, there seems to be minimal outrage over the incident, which is only the latest in the atrocitiis against the community.
#Atrocities | Dalit Brothers brutally Beaten, House Set Ablaze For Not Withdrawing Police Case. Incident at MP’s Datia District. #DalitLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/6gpN1AI46C
— The Dalit Voice (@ambedkariteIND) November 23, 2020
The man identified Santram Dohra, by NDTV, had lodged a complaint against the accused Pavan Yadav over a difference in wage payment. He had refused to withdraw the two-year-old case, despite pressure to do so. According to news reports Sandeep Dohre, and his brother were thrashed by a group of 15 men who also set their house on fire. The incident took place on November 21 in Chirgai village in Madhya Pradesh’s Datia district.
The miscreants reportedly barged into their home of, a resident of for refusing to withdraw a 2018 case against the accused, Pavan Yadav. The complainant Santram Dohra, Sandeep’s brother, had lodged a complaint against Yadav over the difference in wage payment, stated the news report. The police had charged Yadav under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act then. According to news reports the police constituted three teams to investigate the matter.
Since then, Yadav’s family had been pressuring Santram to withdraw the case, but he refused. Enraged, reported NDTV, Yadav, along with a group of 13-14 men on motorbikes, barged into Dohre’s house on Saturday and started beating up the brothers with rifle butts and axes, and set their home on fire. They accused reportedly fired gunshots in the air, hearing which the villagers came out and torched three of their five bikes, reported NDTV.
They fled from the scene with the remaining bikes. Later, the villagers called the police, and rushed the injured men to the nearby hospital, from where they were referred to the district hospital, given the severe injuries. Pavan Yadav, Kallu Yadav, their four relatives and a neighbour have been named in the case.
According to a report in NDTV, in January this year in a 24-year-old Dalit man had died after being burnt alive by four of his neighbours in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar city. The accused were forcing the man to take back a police complaint he had filed after a dispute with them, the police said. The man Dhanprasad Ahirwar, a resident of Motinagar area in Sagar, died at a hospital in New Delhi where he had been rushed for treatment. According to news reports the then ruling Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party had hit out at each other following the incident. The BJP had then said police did not act upon the victim’s complaints made before the incident because of the state government’s “appeasement policy”, the Congress meanwhile accused the BJP of trying to vitiate the atmosphere by spreading “lies”.
Now, the BJP is in power in the state, but for the Dalit community nothing seems to have changed.
Freedom of speech is a virtue of ‘Haves”.
— DalitLivesMatter (@DalitLiveMatter) November 24, 2020
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