Police lodged two FIRs in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district after two Dalit youths accused of goat theft were allegedly “brutally assaulted”, tonsured and garlanded with slippers in the district.
According to the police, the incident, a video of which Odisha Congress leader Amiya Pandav shared on X, allegedly occurred on December 27 under Biridi police station. According to police sources, the two men were allegedly chased by a group of people while they were taking away two goats in an autorickshaw. They were rescued by the police, booked and arrested on theft charges, and sent to judicial custody, but were eventually released on bail, the sources said.
Meanwhile, seven people have been booked under The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and the sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
In a complaint he filed on January 1, the father of one of the Dalit youths claimed that his son and friend were returning from Simadala village when some locals in Baredia and Dhiasahibiri villages “detained their autorickshaw near the Baredia bridge near the panchayat office and asked my son about his name and nativity”.
“While they heard his name, they abused my son and his friend in obscene language by casting aspersions on their caste and accusing them of stealing goats,” the complaint said, adding that the mob also robbed his son of a silver necklace.
Jagatsinghpur SP Bhawani Sankar Udgata told The Indian Express that the police were examining to identify the people in the mob and would “take necessary legal action against them”.
Congress leader Amiya Pandav condemned the incident, writing on X: “Lawlessness is the prime feature of BJP ruled Odisha. See how two Dalit youths were treated in Jagatsinghpur! Human dignity is in danger, shame on the double engine Sarkar”.
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