Social injury to Dalit community will not be reduced: MU Prof

Welcoming the court's decision, Dalit leaders have called for the accused to be given capital punishment. Pointing to how those accused of murdering another Dalit boy Nitin Aage were let off as prosecution witnesses turned hostile, they also demanded a witness protection program.

Union minister of state for social justice and RPI leader Ramdas Athawale stressed on the need for death penalty to ensure a deterrent. Pointing to the acquittal of the accused in the Aage case, Athawale stressed on the need for a witness protection program to ensure that those whose testimony was crucial in such sensitive cases were protected by the police to prevent them from being coerced. Aage (17) was killed in Kharda in 2014 for his purported affair with an upper caste girl. However, the trial court had acquitted the accused.

"The accused deserve the most stringent punishment to serve as a deterrent," demanded RPI leader Avinash Mahatekar, admitting that a thread of honour killings ran through the Sonai and Aage cases. "We have failed to change the society's mindset. Inter-caste marriages are a way to break the caste system. If there are forces who try to prevent this, we need to stop them," he urged.

"The social injury to the Dalit community will not be lessened or reduced," noted Surendra Jondhale, Professor, Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, adding that the "same logic must have been applied in the Nitin Aage case."

However, an academician pointed to how the Sonai case underlined the deprivation and persecution of smaller Dalit communities like the Mehtars in the social system. He rued that despite this, no political party, including the Republican Party of India (RPI) factions, which are dominated by Buddhist Dalits (erstwhile Mahars who converted to Buddhism with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar), had failed to stand up for these social sections.