AISA congratulates the student community for their continuous and spirited participation in successive Rounds of Massive Student Protests at UGC since 21 Oct Against UGC’s Decision to Scrap Non-NET Fellowships, in the Occupy UGC through 21-23 Oct and in protests throughout the day today braving ABVP’s lumpenism since last night, day long detention at Bhalsawa Police Station and police lathi-charge! The movement will continue till the govt is forced to revoke its anti-student move!
Why Are Haryana’s Dalit Children Being Killed while under Police ’Protection’ and ‘Custody’?
Against Burning Alive of Dalit Babies and Custodial Murder of Dalit Youth in Haryana
Against Haryana CM’s Cover Up Of Dalit Atrocities as ‘Family Feud’, ‘Suicide’
Against Casteist Abuse of Dalit Victims by Union Minister VK Singh
Demanding Invocation of SC/ST Act in Both Cases Against Killers As Well As VK Singh
Join Protest At Haryana Bhawan, 24 Oct Saturday, assemble at Ganga Dhaba at 9 am
Two-and-a-half year old Vaibhav and 11-month-old Divya, children of a Dalit couple Jitendra and Rekha, were burnt alive in Sunpedh village in Ballabhgarh, Haryana, when upper caste feudals set their home on fire on 20 Oct night. Rekha also suffered extensive burns and is battling for life. The feudals had already attacked the Dalit family before – and the family was supposedly under police protection. The entire attack took place with the police present and asleep a short distance from the entrance to the house.
The BJP and Government of Haryana ruled by it, instead of taking responsibility for the failure of the police’s abject failure to protect a Dalit family, is insisting that the whole thing was a ‘family feud’ not an anti-Dalit atrocity. This is nothing but a shameful attempt to ensure that the perpetrators of this atrocity are not booked under the SC/ST Act.
In an another shocking incident in the adjacent Gohana, Haryana, 15 year-old dalit boy Govind was found dead under suspicious condition. He was taken into custody for interrogation by policemen on a charge of ‘pigeon theft.’ Later, when his family went to enquire, they were told he had ‘escaped’. His dead body was recovered from his uncle’s abandoned house. According to the Juvenile Justice Act, a juvenile cannot be kept in police lock-up or jail but must be produced before a Juvenile Justice Board, which can give permission for an interrogation only in the presence of a Probation Officer. The juvenile can only be released back into their family’s hands. Instead, the Haryana police jailed him, and claim he ‘escaped from jail’ and went to his uncle’s abandoned house where he ‘committed suicide.’ This is a case of custodial torture and killing of a dalit child by policemen. Shamefully, the cops who have been ‘suspended’ have not yet been arrested for custodial torture and murder.
The response of the Haryana CM and Central Government to these atrocities has been appalling. The Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar has declared – even as the investigation is ongoing – that Govind ‘committed suicide after being accused of theft’ and has said no one should give it a ‘casteist angle.’ Khattar utterly ignores the fact that Govind was in police custody when he died – which makes the police squarely responsible for his death. As for caste – the casteism, Mr Khattar, lies in the casual way in which the police know they can jail and torture a Dalit boy in violation of all laws and escape unscathed. The casteism lies in the refusal to recognise atrocities against Dalits as caste atrocities – instead disguising them as ‘feud’, ‘theft’, ‘stoning of dogs’ and ‘suicide.’
Union Cabinet Minister and former Army chief VK Singh, saying his Government should not be held responsible for “local incidents,” added, “If someone throws stones at a dog, the government is not responsible.” With this atrocious analogy reeking of feudal arrogance, VK Singh made it clear that in his mind, those who burnt the children alive are human, the Dalit victims are like dogs, and the entire incident is too trivial for the lofty Modi Sarkar to be bothered with it.
This isn’t the first time a BJP leader has indulged such analogies of course. The PM Modi himself infamously compared the Muslim victims of the communal pogrom of Gujarat 2002 to ‘puppies’ that ‘came under one’s car.’ When Dalits were lynched to death over accusations of ‘cow slaughter’ in 2002, in Jhajjar, Haryana, VHP leader Giriraj Kishore had infamously declared, “According to our shastras, the life of a cow is very precious.”
And when the butcher of Bihar’s Dalits and oppressed castes, Ranveer Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh, was killed, BJP MP and now Union Minister Giriraj Singh called him ‘Bihar’s Gandhi’! Khattar, who dismissed atrocities and custodial killings Dalits as ‘small incidents,’ had earlier said that the Dadri lynching happened because the victim made a ‘light comment’ about the cow, and that ‘Muslims must give up beef if they want to live in India’.
Haryana has of course been the site of other horrific atrocities against Dalits, even in Congress rule – including the burning alive of Dalits at Mirchpur, the torching of Dalit homes at Gohana, serial rapes of Dalit women, eviction of Dalits from villages in Hisar and Bhagana, and so on. The Congress is in no position at all to take a high moral ground on anti-Dalit atrocities in Haryana.
But the BJP’s Haryana Government headed by RSS man ML Khattar, must be held squarely responsible for the Ballabhgarh and Gohana atrocity, given the fact that the Ballabhgarh victims were actually under police protection, and the Gohana victim was killed by police in their own custody.
The question must also be asked – if Modi and his Government and Home Ministry refuse to accept any responsibility for Dadri or Ballabhgarh or Gohana and insist all these are ‘local incidents,’ how can the Government claim to be running the country? How come the Modi Government has nothing to offer except hate-speech when atrocities against Muslims and Dalits occur?
A CPI(ML) team visited Sunpedh on 22 October, comprising CPI ML Haryana In Charge Com. Prem Singh, CPI ML activist Aslam Khan, AICCTU activist Abhishek Ks, RYA National Secretary Om Prasad and journalist Raziv Raaz.
We appeal to you to join a Protest Demonstration at Haryana Bhawan 24 Oct Saturday (assemble at Ganga Dhaba at 9 am) to protest the atrocities and custodial murder of Dalits in Haryana, and demand that the killers, as well as General VK Singh be booked under the SC/ST Act.
aisa speaks 