Bhopal: A day before Rajya Sabha member and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh, visited the family of an 18-year-old Dalit man who was allegedly beaten to death in the state’s Sagar district last week, police Tuesday arrested eight people in the “assault and murder” case. A search is on for five more accused, ThePrint has learnt.
In a purported video released to the local media, the deceased’s elder brother has alleged that the family was being pressurised by the accused to settle a 2019 case of harassment” of their sister by the accused, and that his brother paid with his life for objecting to it.
“When my sister would go to school, the accused, identified [by the family] as Azad Singh and Vishal Thakur, along with two-three others, would verbally harass her and a case was registered against it. [On the evening of August 24] They [the accused] asked my brother to settle the case and when he objected, saying my father was not in town, they attacked him in the evening and killed him,” the brother has alleged.
Police have, however, claimed that the old case did not relate to sexual harassment.
Meanwhile, according to an FIR registered at Sagar’s Khurai Gramin police station by the deceased’s 20-year-old sister, around 8:30 pm on 24 August, she and her mother were at home when the accused, identified [in the FIR] as Vikram Thakur, Komal Thakur and Vijay Thakur, allegedly forced their way in with a few other men, hurling abuses and referring to the 2019 case filed against them by the family. ThePrint has a copy of the FIR.
According to the FIR, the accused have been booked under Sections 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 458 (lurking and trespassing), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of Rs 50), 294 (use of obscene songs and words), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly with common object) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), along with relevant sections of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
They allegedly broke appliances in the house, pushed the complainant’s mother and asked about the deceased. On being told that he was not at home, they left and were seen making their way to the bus stand near their home, according to the FIR.
The sister has further alleged in her complaint, based on which the FIR was registered, that a little later they heard loud noises coming from the bus stand and rushed there to find her brother being beaten up by Komal Thakur, Vikram Thakur, Vijay Thakur, Azad Thakur and others. The other accused accompanying the Thakurs, identified by the complainant in the FIR, include Lallu Khan, Islam Khan, Golu Khan, Nafis Khan, Wahid Khan among others.
The complainant claimed that when they saw the men beating her brother with sticks and rods, allegedly with an intention to kill him, she and her mother jumped in to rescue her brother.
“Which is when they [the accused] slapped me, and beat me and my mother,” the sister has alleged in her complaint. The deceased’s sister also alleged that the accused stripped their mother, but that the police did not mention it in the FIR.
According to the family, the deceased suffered multiple fractures in the assault and succumbed to his injuries.
Speaking about the case, Khurai Gramen police station sub-inspector, Nitin Pal, said the police were working to nab all the accused, who are residents of the same village. Answering the sister’s claims of the police not adding the mother’s alleged stripping by the accused in the FIR, Pal claimed the complainant had not mentioned it during the filing of the FIR, and that the police would still investigate and add it if such a complaint was made.
The incident has taken a political turn in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh — with Congress forming a six-member fact-finding team to look into the matter and terming MP “a laboratory of Dalit atrocities where the crime rate against Dalit is three times that the national average” — and state minister Bhupendra Singh visiting the deceased’s family Tuesday.
Meanwhile, officers in Sagar police and in the local administration accused the deceased and members of his family of having previous cases filed against them.
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‘Deceased had seven cases registered against him’
Speaking of the 2019 case mentioned the by deceased’s family, Pal claimed that the “old case had nothing to do with any form of sexual harassment. It was a fight and it [the case] is ongoing in court”.
Talking to ThePrint Tuesday, the deceased’s sister alleged, however, that she had been “harassed” by accused Azad Thakur, Vishal Thakur and his friends at the time, while she was on her way to the fields to relieve herself and that the accused had threatened her to not tell anyone about the incident.
“But I came back home and told my family [about the incident]. When my family confronted them, they beat up my brother in the market in 2019. A video of it is available with us. When we tried to register a case with the police, they only recorded a case of clash and did not mention the harassment I suffered, even though I was a minor then,” she alleged.
The 2019 FIR had been registered under Section 294 for (obscene acts or song), according to Pal, as well as sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 34 (act done by several people with common intention) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and relevant sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The accused were out on bail, he added.
Meanwhile, Khurai sub-divisional magistrate Ravish Shrivastav claimed “The deceased’s elder brother and an uncle had been summoned at the SDM’s office [a day before the alleged murder] and made to file a bond to ensure they do not create any law-and-order issue as they have previous cases and are habitual offenders.”
Talking about the incident, the deceased’s sister claimed, “When I went to the police station, I was told to return home, saying that it was a regular process and nothing to worry about it. He [her brother] was kept overnight at the police station and released only in the evening of 24 August, after our lawyer bailed him out. He had been booked under Section 151 [arrest to prevent the commission of cognizable offences] of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc).”
She further alleged that her elder brother had been in custody on purpose to facilitate the attack on the deceased.
Police sources and district officials also alleged that the deceased and several members of his family, including his elder brother and an uncle, have several cases registered against them, including one with the Bhopal Special Task Force (STF), for thefts committed in 2019.
The deceased also had seven other cases, for voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation, theft, trespassing, registered against him at Khurai police station, claimed a police officer at Khurai police station. According to police records, even on the day of his death a case was registered against him, for allegedly pelting stones at the houses of some villagers and hurling abuses at them the night before.
While the deceased’s sister alleged all cases against her brothers were “fake cases”, registered “after the harassment I faced and because we objected to it”, Pal claimed the deceased and members of his family and those accused of killing him were members of rival village gangs.
Incident takes political turn in poll-bound MP
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Arun Yadav, shared a letter on social media platform X (previously Twitter) claiming one of the accused in the deceased’s alleged murder, Komal Thakur, was a representative (appointed to act as a bridge between a leader and the public) of the state’s Minister of Urban Development and Housing departments, Bhupendra Singh. Singh, a BJP leader, is also a sitting MLA from Khurai.
सीधी में भाजपा विधायक केदार शुक्ला के प्रतिनिधि प्रवेश ने आदिवासी युवक पर पेशाब किया था, अब खुरई में मंत्री भूपेंद्र सिंह के प्रतिनिधि ने परिजनों के साथ मिलकर दलित युवक की पीट पीटकर हत्या कर दी, दलित – आदिवासियों पर अत्याचार बढ़ते जा रहे है, क्योंकि अपराधियों को भाजपा का संरक्षण… pic.twitter.com/wIeeqRmW0V
— Arun Subhash Yadav (@MPArunYadav) August 27, 2023
ThePrint reached Singh’s office over call and text messages for comment. The article will be updated once a response is received.
On Sunday, days before visiting the deceased’s family Wednesday, former chief minister Digvijay Singh, announced that a a six-member fact-finding team of the Congress would visit the deceased’s family.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge meanwhile attacked the state government and the Prime Minister’s “silence” over the case on social media, at a time when he held a bhoomi pooja for construction of a temple for Dalit icon Saint Ravidas in MP. He also alleged Madhya Pradesh was a “laboratory of Dalit atrocities, where crime rate against Dalits is three times the national average”.
मध्य प्रदेश के सागर ज़िले में एक दलित युवक की पीट-पीट कर हत्या कर दी गई। गुंडों ने उसकी मॉं को भी नहीं बख़्शा।
सागर में संत रविदास मंदिर बनवाने का ढोंग रचने वाले प्रधानमंत्री जी मध्य प्रदेश में लगातार होते दलित व आदिवासी उत्पीड़न एवं अन्याय पर चूँ तक नहीं करते। मध्यप्रदेश के…
— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) August 27, 2023
According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) Crime in India 2021 report, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan recorded the highest crime rates (cases per lakh of the population) against Dalits that year.
Meanwhile, after the deceased’s family demanded that the properties of the accused be demolished, Sagar district collector Deepak Arya gave a written assurance that they would analyse all the land records and if any illegality is found in properties held by the accused, necessary action to remove encroachment will be taken.
Talking about the case, Arya said, “We are assessing their property but so far unauthorised construction has not been found as it is mostly on residential land. We are looking if agricultural land has been misused and as the accused are landlords they have vast properties which are being looked into.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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