On February 2, 2009, a police officer in Etawah, UP was caught on tape torturing and assaulting a 6 year old Dalit girl, Komal. The police officer, Senior Sub-Inspector Shyamlal Yadav, belonged to the Yadav caste, classified as OBC in the state. As he inflicted the violence upon her, six other police officers (names and castes unreported) stood by watching and did not intervene. He tortured her based on the allegation that she had stolen Rs 280 from another woman. She belonged to a family of daily wage labourers.
In the footage, the police man can be seen pulling her hair, beating her, and slapping her repeatedly as she begs for mercy. The police man tried to justify it saying that she had admitted to stealing the money.
The allegation, even if there was evidence, does not justify this treatment and abuse of police power over a six year old Dalit child, Komal. A representative of the criminal justice system assaulted a Dalit child for no reason other than to assert his power over her in a context where the criminal justice system is structurally biased against Dalits, and police brutality and wrongful incarceration is widely normalized. A 2018 survey showed that 35% of Dalits were afraid of being falsely persecuted and mistreated by the police over allegations of petty theft.
The policeman’s justification of torture, and misrepresentation of facts on record (the allegation was later found out to be false), is an attempt at justifying the violence six year old Komal faced by claiming ‘she asked for it’.. The police here abused their power to assert that the safety and dignity of a Dalit child is conditional upon her legal innocence and morality of theft.
Following national outrage, senior sub-inspector Shyamlal Yadav was fired from his position while SHO Chandrabhan Singh was suspended.
