By Maktoob
An 18 year old Dalit teen, resident of Deval Village, was allegedly beaten to death and his friend severely injured for befriending a minor from an upper caste community in Pratap Nagar block of Uttarakhand’s New Tehri district, police said on Monday.
The deceased Ketan Lal’s friend, Diwakar Dimri, was admitted to the district hospital in Bourari.
According to the complaint filed by Ketan’s father Dhanpal Lal, the incident took place in Kholgarh village on Sunday night.
Ketan had reportedly been in friendship with the girl from Kholgarh over the past six months.
On Sunday at around 11 p.m., Ketan and his friend Diwakar went to Kholgarh village after the girl allegedly asked them over a phone call to come there.
When they both arrived, members of the girl’s family locked them both in a room and assaulted them with sticks, the police said.
On Monday morning, the girl’s father called Dhanpal Lal to inform him about his son’s condition and asked him to take him back.
Dhanpal found his son covered in blood and rushed him to a community health centre in Chaund Lambgaon where he succumbed, the police said.
Irate locals and the family initially refused to claim the body from the hospital and demanded immediate action against the assaulters.
Speaking on the matter, Tehri Garhwal Senior Superintendent of Police Shweta Choubey said a case under the charge of murder and Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was filed.
The police had detained for questioning one of the accused, Yashveer Singh Panwar, the SSP added.
Reacting to the incident, CPI (ML) Liberation Central Committee member and Uttarakhand State Secretary Indresh Maikhuri said it was “another example of how casteism can make people violent and barbaric, even resorting to murder.”
He also recalled similar atrocities against Dalits in his post by mentioning the 2022 murder case of Dalit political activist Jagdish Chandra, who was beaten to death for marrying an upper caste woman.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.