A day after two brothers of a Dalit family were killed over a land dispute in Surendranagar district of Gujarat, two police sub-inspectors have been suspended on the charges of alleged dereliction of duty.
According to police, the brothers were allegedly killed by people belonging to the OBC community in Samadhiala village of Chuda taluka.
The victims Alaji Parmar (60) and Manoj Parmar (54) succumbed to injuries in the hospital. According to the FIR, six accused have been identified and there are about 12 unidentified persons. The complaint stated that the victims were attacked while they were returning home after ploughing their field.
Range IG Ashok Kumar Yadav told a section of media that land dispute between different communities led to the attacks; Dalits and Kathi Darbars were at loggerheads. The family members have refused to accept the bodies unless the accused are arrested. Yadav also visited the hospital.
Gujarat Congress president and Rajya Sabha MP Shaktisinh Gohil, along with other party leaders, visited the grieving family members. Targeting the state government, Gohil said fearing an attack, the victims had sought police protection but it wasn’t given. The Dalit family had won the case in the lower court. The dispute has been going on since 1998. He demanded immediate arrest of the accused.
Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said the Congress is against social injustice to anyone by people of higher caste or headstrong persons.
Two BJP MLAs of the area, who went to meet the victims’ family, faced protests. People from the Dalit community stage protests on the ST Bus Road in Surendranagar.
Dalit leader and Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani told THE WEEK that the inquiry be conducted by a DySP of integrity. Mevani said the complaints and requests of protection given by the persons, who eventually become victims, aren’t taken seriously by the authorities concerned.
He pointed out the case of one RTI activist from Saurashtra, who was done to death a while ago. The Dalit activist had also asked for protection. Mevani said the land allotted to landless people, mostly Dalits, are being encroached upon by rich and people of the higher caste. Mevani, through his legal fight, has got several such encroached land returned to Dalits.
