A Dalit woman was allegedly stripped and beaten mercilessly by members of an upper caste family in Mulgaon village, Satara district, on Monday.The reason? Her son was having an affair with a girl from their family.
The victim is a 42-year-old widow and lives with her 21-year-old son in Mulgaon village. Both work as labourers, and belong to the Matang community.
Several weeks ago, her son had an affair with the upper caste Maratha girl, and the couple had disappeared from the village for the past two weeks. The girl’s father, Krishnat Desai, kept inquiring with the mother as to the whereabouts of her son.
On Monday afternoon, about 15 members of the Desai family approached the victim while she was fetching water from the common village well. There they allegedly beat her with shoes, stones and sticks, and then, after stripping her,dragged her to a tree in the village, tied her up, and started beating her again.
“This was happening for almost two hours, and the police did not file a complaint on that day,” the leader of Dalit Mahasangh Machhindra Sakate told DNA.
Dalit Mahasangh activists took the victim to a hospital in Karad. On Tuesday, the Patan police arrested two men and three women from the Desai clan, as per the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
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