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ShareMob, demanding a CBI probe into the Bhotmange family massacre, had set a police jeep on fire
NAGPUR: An angry mob of dalit protestors went berserk and turned violent on Monday in north Nagpur during demonstrations protesting the Kherlanji massacre, wherein a dalit family was tortured to death by an entire village. The police had to resort to mild caning bring the situation under control.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) BK Upadhyay told reporters in the evening that the situation in Nagpur remains delicate. "The police showed restraint in handling the situation, despite strong provocation by agitators," he said.
Towards late evening, when the situation still remained "tense", the police said curfew could be clamped by midnight in some localities. Reports of stone-pelting and arson continued to come from parts of the dalit-dominated areas, with the police deploying more force and intensifying patrolling in the region.
Trouble started when the irate demonstrators, belonging to several socio-political dalit groups, set a police jeep afire and made an abortive bid to torch the Indora Police station in the afternoon, when a peace meeting of ward emissaries was on.
Over 2000 agitators took to the streets in the morning at Indora and Wadi areas, demanding stern punishment to the perpetrators of Kherlanji massacre in which four members of Bhotmange family were done to death by almost the entire village.
The villagers had allegedly stripped Surekha Bhotmange, 44, and her daughter Priyanka, raped and then brutally killed them over land feud. The villagers had also stabbed to death Surekha's two sons -- one of them blind -- the same time. Surekha's husband Bhaiyyalal survived because he was not home.
The incident has sparked widespread anger and protests in the region and the protests are becoming fiercer across Vidarbha with every passing day, even as the investigations into the incident move at a snail's pace. Several dalit and women's organisations have demanded that the case be handed over to CBI, this - after the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission visited the village and aired the same sentiment.
A conglomerate of dalit organisations took out a march from Kherna village in Bhandara district where a dalit girl was raped and murdered last month. The march culminated on Sunday at Kherlanji village, amidst high tension.
Meanwhile, Bhandara police have arrested about 50 persons from Kherlanji. An Andhalgaon police station head constable has also been made a co-accused. But sources in the Bhandara police say there's no clinching evidence yet. The report of the second autopsy performed after exhuming bodies of the victims are negative to rape.
Social and political organisations have decried the post-mortem reports, saying eyewitnesses have seen what happened in Kherlanji on September 29. The police have meanwhile slapped the relevant sections of the Atrocity Act on all the arrested accused.
