He said the incident happened after a group of people attacked members of a Dalit family who were skinning a “dead cow”. A video of the beating has gone viral.
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Cow protection groups have become increasingly active since the BJP took power in 2014.
Cow slaughter is banned in several states, including Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan. In 2015, a Muslim man was lynched by a mob over allegations that his family had been storing and consuming beef. He said, “The message should go that Dalits are also citizens of this country”.
It does not make prime time television for obvious reasons, but ” I’m like a young person who has come of age”, said Mr Patel to NDTV, “every party thinks of me as a prospective partner, (but) I am just looking”. He praised the Gujarat government’s efficiency in dealing with the situation, amidst protests from the Opposition. Dalits usually carry out undesirable tasks such as skinning dead animals, and many work in tanneries and in the leather industry. The footage showed victims tied to a vehicle and beaten with iron rods and belts.
“Dalits are very angry in Gujarat”. According to the 2001 Census, there are approximately 3.6 million members of the Scheduled Castes in Gujarat, accounting for 7.1 per cent of the state’s total population.
One of the demands by Dalit groups is swift punishment for offenders.
“While it is okay for them to want to protect cows, the gau raksha samitis should understand that cows do die”.
“If the conviction rate is low, people who can afford a good lawyer know that they can get away with their crime”, Supreme Court lawyer Kamlesh Kumar Mishra said. Successive governments have made efforts to help them, such as by setting aside places in universities and jobs in government for Dalits.
He said Dalits had faced lot of atrocities in the state during 1991-99.
Singh said crimes against dalits were a “social evil” and all parties should join hands to eradicate it.
Kejriwal further said, “BJP government in Gujarat is trying to suppress Dalits in the state”.
In Gir-Somnath and surrounding districts of Gujarat these self-appointed cow protection committees have come up in the name of saving cows, said Kaushik Parmar, who led the fact finding team to the village.
“No government in India has done so much for the poor and dalits as the Modi government has”, the Home Minister claimed as he spoke about schemes like Jan Dhan and Start-up India aimed at their financial inclusion.
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This spurred Gujarat Minister of State for Home Rajnikant Patel to rush to meet the family of Amrolia before Kejriwal reached there. “Ground reports actually suggest things are not as firm in terms of support for the BJP”.
