Gujarat Dalit youth murder for riding horse a warning to SC order on misuse of anti-atrocities law

  

By Rajiv Shah 

The gruesome murder of a Dalit youth allegedly for refusing to heed the order of high caste Rajputs not to "show off" by riding on his horse is all set to become a major embarrassment for the Supreme Court, which ruled recently that certain provisions the Prevention of Atrocities (POA) Act were being misused to "blackmail" innocent people. The only Dalit boy in the region to ride a horse, he was quite popular in his community.
According to a local Dalit activist Arvind Makwana, 21-year-old Pradip Rathod of Timbi village in Umrala taluka of Bhavnagar district was killed on March 29 evening a week after his father was threatened that the boy should refrain from riding the horse. Gifted by his father after buying the horse five months back for Rs 30,000, Makwana says, "The village Rajputs had told Pradip's father to sell the horse, or face fatal consequences."
According to available information, Pradip, as always, went out of his house riding on his horse rode on March 29 evening, but the horse came back alone. His father, Kalubhai, out to search his son, was shocked to find the body soaked in blood a little away from his house. Pradip was the only Dalit not only in his village but also in neighbouring villages to own a horse and ride on it, something Rajputs believed was their forte.
While Gujarat's top Dalit face Jignesh Mevani has, in a sarcastic comment, said he "dedicates" news of the dastardly incident to the Supreme Court judgment "which said Dalits blackmail citizens with POA Act", well-known Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, founder of the state's biggest Dalit NGO Navsarjan Trust, has insisted, "The Supreme Court had ruled that the anti-atrocities law was being misused to harass innocent people. Even before the ink dried up, this young boy was murdered."

Said senior Gujarat Dalit activist Kantilal Parmar, "Kalubhai's family refused to take Pradip's body, lying in Bhavnagar Civil Hospital, till those accused in the murder were arrested. About 2,000 people from surrounding villages joined in and sat on dharna. The administration was forced to act. It rounded up three persons involved in the murder."
Pointing out that this is not an isolated incident, Parmar said, earlier incidents, which took place over the last about a year, involved the murder of Jayesh Solanki was for watching garba in Bhadaniya village of Anand district, Patan district's Bhanubhai Vankar setting himself on fire after the government administration refused to provide him land he was allocated, and Bharatbhai Gohel of Veraval's Ambariyala village being burned alive for failing to pay up dues for the car which he had bought.
Then there was the most recent incident of Rajkot's Manekvada village where a young Right to Information activist was killed for seeking to bring on surface massive corruption in the administration, a Dalit boy in a village of Sabarkantha district being beaten up for keeping moustache, suicide of a midday meal scheme in charge in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home town Vadnagar on being harassed by teachers, the murder of Mahesh Senva in Ahmdabad district for for seeking irrigation water, and the murder of a constable Vinodbhai in Detroj, also in Ahmedabad district.