A young man wearing an Ambedkar t-shirt was attacked by a non-uniformed policeman with a wire-like weapon in broad light. The young man hails from a colony in Tokkavadi where predominantly Dalits reside. On the day of the incident, the man was wearing a t-shirt that had Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s picture on it and he started talking to his friend on the road, who is a girl from a dominant caste background. minutes, Eeswaran, a policeman from the Pudupalayam police station, arrived at the scene. Eeswaran was enraged to see the girl jovially chatting with the man wearing an Ambedkar T-shirt. He harshly enquired the man about his village and whereabouts. He asked “who are you to talk casually with our caste girl?” to which the man replied that he hails from Tokkavadi colony (an area inhabited only by Dalits). Eeswaran said to the man, “how dare you to talk to my caste girl, you son of a pariah bitch “and pulled him by his t-shirt, slapped him and ruthlessly pushed him on the ground. He kicked him with his boots and hit him hardly with a wire cable in front of around 80 people who were the witnesses to the
Incident. A little boy, a 7th grader, recorded the incident on his cell phone. This horrific incident went viral on social media the very next day.
Policeman Eeswaran was on leave at the time of the incident. He was booked at Sengam Police Station and is currently under suspension. Since Eeswaran was remanded in this case, it cannot be generally assumed that the police involved in violence across the state are similarly arrested. Legal action against police officers involved in police violence is only 1 percent. 99 percent of the offenders are Acquitted.
Artist: Ajinkya Dekhane (@azinzya)
#LockdownCasteAtrocities is a campaign by DHRDNet to highlight the cases of atrocity against Dalits that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
