On June 2, 2017, a 50-year-old Dalit woman, whose name is unknown, was beaten, stripped, and dragged on the ground by a mob of 30 Maratha men. The woman belonged to Charmakar caste. The 50 year old woman was from Ruikhed village in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra. This is also where the violence occurred. The mob of 30 Maratha men, left her when she fell unconscious from the violence. The mob also tried to attack her husband and sons, though they managed to escape with minor injuries.
According to the victim’s account, there was a conflict between her husband and her son on the evening of June 2nd, 2017. Their fight escalated, and her husband left the house saying that he would hang himself to death. Distressed and terrified, the woman and her sons ran out to look for him, and mistakenly entered their Maratha neighbour’s farm.
The Marathas were celebrating a wedding and a lot of the men were inebriated. One of the Marathas at the wedding saw the victim and exclaimed “Thief! ” and soon the mob attacked her. The mob pushed the police patil to the ground when he tried to intervene. A police patil is an official appointed by the state government for assisting the police in the village. After the violence, they threatened the other villagers saying that anyone who tried to help her would face dire consequences.
In the Ruikhed village, there are only 25 Chamarkar families, The Marathas hold political influence, with the sarpanch, deputy sarpanch, the Tanta Mukti Samiti, and the police patil, all belonging to the extended Maratha Ugale family. However, the victim in this case had been politically assertive and owned six acres of cultivable land. This assertion did not sit right with the dominant caste families and according to the victim, it is for this reason that they punished her.
Members of the Maratha community went on record to blame the victim and justify the violence, lying about how the victim was a thief, and pointing to previous complaints of manufacturing illicit liquor and cattle theft that were pending against her and her family. Due to the victim not having a ‘clean record’, many activists also withdrew involvement from the case.
