IN Bela Khara village of district Raebareli in UP a child was beaten to death by upper caste goons with full impunity.
At 9 AM on the morning of 27 April 2020 four children belonging to the dalit caste were grazing their cattle. One of the cows entered into the field belonging to Pramod Vajpayee. Amit Shukla detained the children on the spot and called Pramod Vajpayee and Siddharth Vajpayee. Then all three of them mercilessly beat the children (Ram Shankar, Uday Bhan, Arjun Kumar, and Ram Kesh) with sticks, kicks and fisticuffs. When Ram Shankar tried to run and escape, Pramod and Siddharth chased him on their motorbike and caught him and beat him up brutally. The police, informed telephonically of the incident, arrived and went away giving an assurance that action would be taken. On 28 April the families of all four children went to the Thana and gave a written application for filing a report and conducting medical examination of the children. But neither was a report filed, nor was any medical examination of the children done even though the condition of Ram Shankar was very serious.
On 29 April the victims’ families were called to the Thana by telephone, where they went with their injured children. The perpetrators were already present at the Thana. The victims and their families were made to sit in the Thana for the entire day and then told to go away, whereas the families were consistently requesting medical examination so that the children could be given treatment.
On the night of 3-4 May the condition of Ram Shankar became very serious and his family called an ambulance and took him to the Primary Health Center, from where they were sent to the District Hospital where the child was declared dead.
The victims are poor and landless dalits. If the police had taken timely action, registered a case, and done the medical examination of the children, Ram Shankar would have got timely medical treatment and his life could have been saved. But the police did not listen to the poor, and instead ignored the crime due to the influence of the wealth and power of the dominant forces, resulting in the death of the child. A report was filed after the death of the child, but the perpetrators are roaming free and fearless and are even now threatening the dalit families.
The CPIML Uttar Pradesh has demanded action against the criminals as well as against the police personnel who failed to file a report and failed to arrange for a medical examination and medical treatment of the children. A CPIML team comprised of Vijay Vidrohi and Shamsher Singh visited the aggrieved families.
