There are 17 villages in Gujarat where police teams had to be deployed to protect dalits who were being threatened by non-dalits living there.
As Aamir Khan highlighted the plight of the dalits in the country, those in Gujarat happen to be no exception. Gujarat is believed to be among the safest states in the country but apparently it is not so safe for dalits. There are 17 villages in the state where police teams had to be deployed to protect dalits who were being threatened by non-dalits living there. This shocking fact has been revealed by a reply to an RTI application. In almost all the villages concerned, police teams deputed for protection of members of Scheduled Castes are still there.
“Dalits have been killed, assaulted, threatened and socially boycotted for raising their voice against the forward castes. The persecuted dalits had to seek police protection just to be able live in own villages,” said Shankar Shenva, a dalit, who has been a victim of social boycott.
The 17 villages where special police teams had to be deployed are located in Sabarkantha, Banaskantha, Anand, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Junagadh and Bhavnagar. In fact, before December 2011, there were 20 such villages but in December 2011, police teams in two villages — on in Jamnagar and one in Sabarkantha — were withdrawn after the warring communities came to a settlement.
Talking to DNA, Kirit Rathod, programme director of Navsarjan Trust, an NGO that has been fighting for dalit rights, said they came to know about the special police bandobast in the villages when they received a reply to an RTI application.
They had filed an RTI query to know the minutes of the state-level meeting of state secretarial committee. Rathod further said that police teams cannot be withdrawn from all the villages as members of the forward castes are not ready to accept the dalits as one of their own and let them live in their villages. He said that some dalit families had been provided police security since 1997 and it was still continuing. In most cases, security was provided when the dalits were repeatedly attacked by members of other communities.
“There are cases where a Dalit was killed by members of the forward castes. The family members of the deceased were later harassed by the accused,” Rathod said. Rathod gave the example of one Gagabhai Dalit of Kundaliya village in Banaskanta district, who was killed because he had filed a police complaint under the Prevention of Atrocities Act against influential people of the village.
His son, Bhagwanbhai Dalit, had filed a complaint when he was harassed and threatened by the accused. The Banaskantha police had then deputed a police team in the village for the family’s protection. There are four villages in Banaskantha district where such police teams are deployed. Talking to DNA on phone, district superintendent of police, Banaskantha, Ashok Yadav, said that discrimination against dalits was still a major social problem.
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