The 50-year-old Dalit woman and her family said they were accused of attempting to steal a pair of bullocks from a farm that belonged to a dominant-caste Maratha family.
Image source: Sukanya Shantha for the Caravan
“Marathas of Ruikhed, Maharashtra in 2017 allegedly attacked a 50-year-old Dalit woman to punish her for being politically assertive & blamed her for the violence by claiming that she was a thief & liquor brewer.”
On June 2, 2017, a 50-year-old Dalit Charmakar woman was beaten, stripped, and dragged on the ground by a mob of 30 Maratha men in the Ruikhed village in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra. The mob 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 had been some conflict between her husband and her son for some time preceding the day of the violence and on that evening, their fight escalated, and her husband left the house saying that he would hang himself to death. Distressed and terrified, they 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. Someone saw the victim and shouted “Thief! Thief!” and soon the mob started attacking her. The mob pushed the police patil to the ground when he tried to intervene as well. They dragged her for nearly 500 metres, till the main access road of 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, and the Maratha hold a lot of 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.
References:
https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/maratha-majority-village-maharashtra-mob-violence-dalit-woman
https://www.deccanherald.com/content/615842/maha-dalit-woman-50-beaten.html
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/maharashtra-dalit-woman-beaten-and-stripped-on-theft-allegation-4691991/
