Sohan lal, father of the missing Dalit youth Rakesh lal, said while talking to this correspondent in Dehradun on Wednesday, that they would not have fled the village in the night of the scuffle had police not terrorised them. “Police acting at the behest of the upper caste people forced us into submission through a compromise scripted by the upper caste people,” lal, who works as a shepherd in the village, said.
While hinting that his son might not be alive, he said that the Dalit families which are still staying back in Dehradun and some other places would not return to their village until they are sure of their security there. He further said that the forest department having slapped a case on them over its find of prohibited meat in their huts has made it all the more difficult for them to return to the village.
He dubbed the matter as part of a conspiracy hatched by the upper caste people in connivance with police and others to keep them under their domination.
“We were not willing to leave the village. We are habituated through generations for putting up with the abuses and other forms of torture we are being heaped with.
We have never raised our voice against such things. This time things were different as police were acting the bids of our persecutors,” he said while staging a sit- in at Parade Ground along with some other families who refused to return to their village, post-‘compromise’.
He further said that his son was a little drunk that day. “It is part of the village tradition. The members of the family hosting the wedding party arrange the liquor. My son might have misbehaved with an elderly woman under the influence of alcohol.