In another incident that highlights the staring schism between casts and appalling apathy towards Dalits in Yogi Adityanath's Uttar Pradesh, an eight-month pregnant “lower cast” woman has been brutally beaten up by an “upper cast” mother-son duo for “touching a bucket” that later led to her and her unborn child’s death in Bulandshahr district.
Savitri Devi, a Dalit, who used to collect garbage from five homes for a living, was punched repeatedly in the stomach by Anju, an upper caste Thakur, October 15 after the former lost balance and accidentally touched the bucket, reported The Indian Express. Eyewitness recounts how Anju’s son Rohit too joined the beating spree. While the mother banged her head on a wall, son beat her up with a stick.
Six days later, both Savitri and her unborn child were dead. The autopsy report blamed “antemortem head injury” as the cause of her death, the newspaper reported.
The police have lodged a case against Anju and Rohit, who are on a run since October 18. After the postmortem report confirmed the cause of her death, the police have now also added IPC sections 304 A (death by negligence), 316 (causing the death of the unborn child by act amounting to culpable homicide) and provisions of SC/ST Act.
In a village where 30% of the inhabitants are Dalits, according to the latest census, bitter squirmish between the upper-lower castes is a regular affair, but this particular incident has again spotlighted their security concerns.
On the same day, in nearby Muzaffarnagar, a Dalit girl was allegedly thrashed by Jats that further led to a tense situation.
