Atrocities against Haryana’s dalits were unabated even after the state government fulfilled its recent promise by constituting a one-man judicial commission to probe the April 21 violence in Hisar’s Mirchpur village where upper caste miscreants torched 18 dalit homes, resulting in the death of a 70-year-old man and his handicapped daughter.
While retired Punjab and Haryana high court judge Iqbal Singh is still to begin his inquest into the disaster, the tension amidst Haryana’s tradition-bound caste groups is becoming obvious in repeated flare-ups, wherein dalits have been targeted.
In Jhajjar’s Gwalison village, a reportedly inebriated group of jat youngsters poured a can full of petrol over a dalit, Sandeep Kumar, and set a burning match to his doused clothes. The severely-burnt victim, under treatment at Rohtak’s PGIMS hospital, said the jat boys were angry because he refused to confess to stealing a mobile phone.
Nervous police officials, who are only too aware of the massive political fallout of Mirchpur, are keen to play down the incident. Though the accused jats have been charged with attempted murder (FIR at Beri police station), investigating officials insisted there was “no caste angle” to the crime.
Closer to the national capital in Sonepat’s Barona village, as many as four dalit families testified before police officers that their homes were damaged by upper caste residents. The victims were apparently targeted because they had refused to vote for a particular candidate during the recently-concluded village panchayat elections.
Hari Singh, Sardar Singh, Sharwan and Mukesh informed the police that a group of people loyal to the newly-elected sarpanch damaged their homes which are still under construction on 100-square yard plots, recently allotted by the state government.