A contractual electricity worker in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district was on Saturday arrested for allegedly assaulting a Dalit person and making him lick his shoes.
Tejbali Singh Patel was arrested after videos of the incident were widely shared on social media on Saturday.
In one of the videos, Patel is seen assaulting and abusing 21-year-old Rajendra Chamar and asking another person to record a video and share it in a group. In the second video, Chamar is seen licking the accused’s shoes and doing sit-ups while holding his ears.
Chamar said that the incident had taken place on July 6 when he had gone to his uncle’s home to look at a problem with electricity wires, reported The Indian Express.
“Tejbali reached there and started assaulting me with sticks,” he alleged. “He also made me spit on his shoes and lick it. For two days, I didn’t say anything. But now, I have come to lodge a case.”
The Uttar Pradesh Police said that Patel has been booked under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. He has also been suspended from his job, the police added.
The incident comes days after two Dalit men were assaulted in Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri district on the suspicion that they had molested some girls. The men were beaten and their faces were blackened. They were also garlanded with shoes and paraded in the village.
Prior to this, an Adivasi man was arrested for urinating on an Adivasi person in the Sidhi district of the state.
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