The Gujarat Police have booked five people in an alleged case of atrocity and assault on Dalits at Kasor village in Anand district, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday. Complainant Shailesh Rohit said that a mob of 20 people, belonging to the Kshatriya community of Darbars, beat up his mother Maniben and him on Saturday night.
The mob also verbally abused the two of them, he said. “On Friday, Darbar community members threatened me to stop the [cattle] skinning work saying it was raising a stink in their locality,” Rohit told The Times of India. To avoid trouble, he left the area that night, but the next night, his mother and he were attacked by the mob in their house, he added.
The police have booked Dhola Parmar, Vijay Parmar, Jaimin Parmar, Kaushik Parmar and another person under IPC Sections 323 (Assault), 506 (Criminal intimidation), and various sections of the The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
The police have issued a notice to the accused and told them to appear at the station on Wednesday, Anand Anand Superintendent of Police Saurabh Singh said. Khmabat Deputy Superintendent of Police D D Damor, who is investigating the case, told The Times Of India that police have collected the names of seven more assailants, who have fled the village. He added that Rohit and his family have been given round-the-clock security.
In July 2016, a mob of self-appointed “cow protection” vigilantes in Gujarat stripped, tied and beat up four Dalit men for skinning a dead cow in Gir Somnath district’s Una taluka. The incident had triggered perhaps the biggest Dalit protest movement in Gujarat in recent history. In the weeks following the attack, amid national outrage, 40 men accused of the crime were arrested.
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