Two outfits claiming to champion the cause of the Dalit community- Uttarakhand Samvaidhanik Sanrakshan Manch (USSM) and Bheem Army Bharat Ekta Mission (BABEM) now on sit-in stir in Dehradun, said that the Dalit youth Rakesh lal, who had gone missing after the flare- up at Gangi village in Tehri district on December 1, might have been murdered by the upper caste people from the village. The leaders of both the outfits said that they would continue with the sit-in until police traces the 17-year-old youth.
USSM leader Daulat Kunwar who had earlier spearheaded stirs over the issues of alleged atrocities on the Dalit community people, met the Garhwal commissioner Dilip Jawalkar and DIG Garhwal Range Pushpak Jyoti on Wednesday and submitted memorandum, demanding police to trace the missing Dalit youth and arrest of those responsible for the exodus of the scared Dalit community people from their village.
Kunwar further said that they had demanded suspension of the police officers based in Ghansali who had allegedly brokered a compromise, forcing the Dalit community people to fall in line.
Notably, the scared people had reached Ghansali after travelling from their village Ghangi in the night of the incident.
Kunwar later said that the condition of Dalit community people has not improved a bit in the hills of Uttarakhand after seven decades since independence. “They are still being subjected to physical and mental tortures on the basis of their lower status in the caste hierarchy.
Things have turned even worse in the recent years as the hills are seeing a surge in such atrocities heaped on the Dalit people on the basis of the antediluvian caste system,” he said, adding that they would go for a state-wide full-blown agitation in case the administration and police fail to trace the missing youth and ensure security and honour for the people belonging to the depressed classes of the society.
A BABEM leader Mahak Singh said that they had lodged a complaint under SC/ST Act in the police station on December 7, demanding police to arrest the accused from the upper caste and to trace the youth from the Dalit community missing since the day of the incident. “We are staging here a sit-in along with the Dalit families who fled their village in the aftermath of the threat given by the upper caste families of torching them alive. The role of the administration and police is queer.
Instead of arresting the accused under SC/ST Act, they are out to thrash out a compromise between the two communities.
The upper caste people have allegedly offered Rs 40 lakh as the compromise amount, a proposal shot down by us with the contempt it deserves. We are fighting to ensure that the Dalit community people live with honour and security in their villages,” he said, adding that they would intensify their agitation further by taking it to other places in the State if their demands remain unaddressed.