Maharashtra: Police arrest one for beating up 4 Dalit youths in Ahmednagar; 5 absconding

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Ahmednagar police, on Monday, said that they have arrested one person of the six accused for allegedly assaulting four youths of the Dalit community, ANI reported. The accused was booked for attempt to murder and kidnapping. The incident was highlighted after a video of the same began to circulate on social media and went viral.

The accused, reportedly, have been booked under Sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 364 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code and under relevant sections of Scheduled Caste and Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

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The police told news agency ANI that the six accused had purportedly abducted the four Dalit youths from their homes in Haregaon. They were battered by the accused, hung upside down from a tree. The victims alleged that the accused urinated on them.

The youths were assaulted by the accused on the suspicion that they had stolen goats and pigeons. Reportedly, the incident happened on August 25. The injured are presently undergoing treatment in a city-based hospital after the locals jumped in to rescue the youths.

Additional SP of Ahmednagar, Swati Bhor that they have registered an FIR based on the complaint of vicitims and have arrested one [accused] so far. "A hunt is on to nab the absconding accused," she added.

The accused named in the FIR have been identified as Yuvraj Galande, Manoj Bodke, Pappu Parakhe, Deepak Gaikwad, Durgesh Vaidya and Raju Borag.

VBA chief, Dalit activist Prakash Ambedkar reacts

Dalit activist and president of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, Prakash Ambedkar, sharing the purported video on X (formerly Twitter) wrote, "Another day in Maharashtra, another caste atrocity." He elaborated that the Dalit youths were battered on suspicion of theft of pigeons and that it is "absolutely unquestionable" that this incident is a caste atrocity. "It was because of the caste system that the Dalit boys were treated so brutally. Would anybody else have been beaten similarly on suspicions of theft? No," he initially wrote.

In a later tweet, he explained that he had spoken to one of the victims and his kin. "I just spoke to the one of the victims and his grandmother over a phone call. He was thrashed, urinated upon, spitted on, forced to lick his own spit, stripped and hung upside down. Horrific, isn't? This is what MY PEOPLE face every day," he then tweeted. He further elaborated and said the caste-based discrimination and government's indifferent to the same "is not new".

"WE will challenge and change this ‘indifference'. I promise you that on behalf of the whole VBA," he wrote.