Ahmedabad: Revisting Chharanagar brutality with verses

While police brutality on the night of July 26 is still fresh in the minds of Chharanagar residents, wordsmiths of the city have penned verses on it. The music of the verses will flow a during poetry recitation session this Monday. Some of them have already been published in Nirdhar — an independent magazine that publishes works on the marginalised class.

"The poets have expressed their agony on the atrocity unleashed on the Dalits during the Una incident. Around 14 poets, some of whom were detained by the police on the fateful night, have captured Chharanagar incident, the history of the community," said Umesh Solanki, the editor of the magazine. 

Around 33 people of the community and three police officers sustained injuries in the violence. Twenty-nine people, including a photo-journalist, lawyer, artist were arrested.

Jayesh Solanki, whose verses voice the plight of the Chhara community says, "It is sad that people from the community have been labelled as criminals. A newborn is tagged as a criminal just by his birth. People from Chharanagar have dreams too, but they are treated as a different part of society," said Jayesh. "We disagree with the discrimination meted out to the Chhara community, and our poems which will deliver the message in strong lines," Mushtaq Ali Shaikh, an activist and poet said.