The police in Maharashtra’s Beed district have ordered an inquiry after a purported video of a police officer saying she filed false cases against Dalits and Muslims went viral, reported Mumbai Mirror on Monday.
Superintendent of Beed Police Shreedhar Govindarajan ordered the inquiry after local Dalit organisations raised a complaint on Friday. “We are searching for the original source of the video to ascertain if it was tampered [with],” Govindarajan said.
A person, who appears to be Bhagyashree Navtake, deputy superintendent of police in Majalgaon taluka, is heard saying that she has filed false cases against 21 Dalits who had gone to make complaints under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act at her police stations. “I tie the hands and legs of Dalits and take out my anger about [the Atrocities Act] on them,” the person is heard saying.
The person in the video is speaking to a group of Marathas who appears to have reached out to her for help after being booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The person is heard saying that she was helpless when the accused who were booked under the SC/ST Act were brought to her station. “If I had spared you, it would have looked like ‘Madam is a Maratha and hence she stopped us from assaulting [Maratha]’,” the person is heard saying.
The clip has been aired on several television channels.
Scroll.in attempted to contact Navtake for comment, but her mobile phone was switched off.
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