MP: Seven Arrested For Asking Dalit Girl Not To Attend School

A Dalit man in MP's Chhatarpur district has alleged that his face and body were smeared with human excreta by a man from another caste. This happened after the former accidentally touched the latter with some grease (Representational Image)

A group of locals allegedly told a 16-year-old Dalit girl not to attend school since other girls were also not studying in a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Shajapur district, a police official said.

Police have arrested seven persons in connection with the incident which took place on Saturday, after a clash broke out between the family of the girl and the accused in Bawaliyakhedi village, leaving some people injured, he said.

The girl posted a video in which she alleged that the accused snatched her school bag and objected to her attending classes. She alleged that the accused assaulted her brother when he took issue with their comments and also beat up other family members.

“The incident took when the minor girl of a Scheduled Caste community was going home after attending a local school on Saturday afternoon,” Kotwali police station in-charge Avdhesh Kumar Shesha said on Tuesday, quoting a complaint.

“Some persons allegedly accosted and snatched the girl’s school bag and told her not to attend school as other girls of the village were not doing so,” he said. Later, a clash erupted between the girl’s family and relatives of the accused, he said.

Following the complaint, the police arrested seven people on Monday under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the official said. A cross-complaint by the other side, alleging assault, was also registered against the girl’s brother and three others, he said.

Those injured in the clash were being treated in the district hospital, the official said, but did not give their exact number.

Meanwhile, the Gujarat High Court on Monday granted regular bail to four main accused in the July 2016 case of flogging Dalit men by purported cow vigilantes in Una in Gujarat’s Gir Somnath district. This is the first time in the last six years that the accused have been granted bail by a court of law.

The accused were part of a group of purported cow vigilantes who assaulted some Dalit men for skinning a cow carcass at Mota Samadhiyala village on July 11, 2016. In the incident, videos of which caused outrage across the nation, the victims were tied to a vehicle and thrashed for allegedly skinning a slaughtered cow, after which a First Information Report (FIR) was lodged at Una police station. (PTI)