I urge Central Govt to treat Dalits with care & give full protection.
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Yadav said that the Prime Minister cries at the drop of a hat or tweets on anything happening but he has said not a single word on the unfortunate incident in his home state. The Dalit outburst now is not just a response to Una, that is the trigger of course, but a reaction to suppression and victimisation according to activists working on humanitarian issues in Gujarat. The video of four men chained to a auto and beaten with iron rods has since gone viral triggering outrage and protests across the country against the Hindutva cow vigilante groups in Gujarat.
“Why should the Dalit youths do the dirty work of removing and skinning dead cows if they are being beaten up and insulted for doing so?” Leaders like Daya Shankar Singh, they say, were promoted out of turn and without any serious political thought.
The bandh was observed in Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Amreli and some small towns in Saurashtra, and also at Patan town and Aravalli district in North Gujarat. He praised the Gujarat government’s efficiency in dealing with the situation, amidst protests from the Opposition.
Members of Dalit community stop a train at Udhna Junction during a protest in Surat yesterday.
For at least three days, protests against brutal thrashing of Dalit youths at Una, allegedly by some self-styled cow vigilantes, flared up with incidents of vandalism and arson being reported from several parts of the state. The Dalits said they had only skinned a dead cow for leather and had not slaughtered it.
The National Human Rights Commission, meanwhile, has issued a notice to the district collector and district superintendent of police to provide details of the Una incident and the action taken. It is slated to discuss the atrocities against Dalits on Thursday.
He raised the issue after virtually the entire opposition was on its feet protesting against the incident with Congress members storming the Well.
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After meeting them and holding discussions, Anandiben claimed all 25 Dalit families in the village were satisfied with the government’s action in the assault case.
