Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Dalit man burnt alive in Madhya Pradesh in India

Dhar (Madhya Pradesh, India), SVM News, November 13, 2007: A Dalit villager burnt to death by upper-caste people in Dhar District of Madhya Pradesh in India on November 10.

Kailash Bagri (40) was burnt alive on Saturday by a group of 50 armed men for beating an ox belonging to his upper-caste neighbour that had strayed into his field.

Shankar, Kailash Bagri's son told that they all converged at their house brandishing swords.

"My father ran some distance but they eventually caught him and burnt him to death...all because he beat an animal," Shankar said to the Salem Voice Ministries (SVM) News Service. "Our family was so terrified that we ran for cover," he added.

A senior police official said the case was detected on Monday; but he denied reports that the man was burnt alive.

Chanchal Shekhar, District Superintendent of Police (SP) of Dhar said, "They tried to conceal their crime by burning and disposing the body, but we have seized the evidence."

SP continued that the police authorities haven't been able to make any arrests since the accused are absconding.

Paul Ciniraj, president of the Christian Ministers of the Churches in India (CMCI) and the Director of the Salem Voice Ministries condemned the incident.

Atrocities against Dalits from upper-castes are common in India. Low-caste people are being known as Dalits.

Two Dalit women named Devorati and Kamala were being thrown out of government hospital and died after they gave birth of two babies in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh on November 1 by the health officials for the inability of paying additional bribe.

A Dalit Christian woman, Chellarian Rita, found murdered while attempting of the rape on October 19 in Kannur District of Kerala.

Another Dalit woman, Suman, was tied up to a tree, severely beaten and forced to drink urine on October 10 at the village of Tili Aanvili in Hosangabad district of Madhya Pradesh for refusing to harvest crop alone in an entire farm.

In September, a Dalit woman was burnt alive by upper-caste men in northern Uttar Pradesh state, after her son eloped with a girl from their caste.

Earlier in August, a policeman in eastern Bihar state had drowned two low-caste girls by throwing them in a river for stealing firewood from his orchard.

Caste-based discrimination is banned in India, but upper-caste Hindus still practice all forms of discrimination, including not allowing the low-caste to worship at temples and insisting that they drink from separate village wells.

The most menial jobs, including cleaning of sewers and night soil, often manually, are also largely done by Dalit community members, who comprise about 160 million of India's 1.2 billion population.

A major portion of Dalits believing Jesus Christ and worshipping God in the Spirit and the truth because of the discrimination of the upper-caste people. There also the fundamentalists do not allow them to live with peace; but persecuting and torturing widely.

Earlier this year, a United Nations committee, equated violence against Dalits with racial discrimination and has questioned India's record on treatment of the socially marginalized.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has called upon the Indian government to ensure an immediate end to the violence on Dalits.

The report found that the "de-facto segregation of Dalits persists" and highlighted systematic abuse against Dalits, including torture and extra-judicial killings, as well as an "alarming" extent of sexual violence against Dalit women.

SVM News: http://salemvoice.org/svmnews271.html

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