UP Dalit boy assaulted, forced to lick feet

Mangalore Today News Network / NDTV

Raebareli, April 19, 2022: In a shocking incident of caste-based violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli, a minor boy from the Dalit community was assaulted and made to lick the feet of one of the accused.

 

A 2 min 30-second video viral on social media shows the boy sitting on the ground with his hands on his ears - a sign of punishment. The accused can be sitting on motorcycles, some of them laughing as the victim shakes in fear on the ground. One of the accused asks the victim the spell the name ’Thakur’ - an upper caste and also abuses him. "Will you make such a mistake again?" another accused asks the victim.

Another video appears to show the men accusing the victim of selling Marijuana, a charge the victim appears to accept under duress.

Police arrested seven people after a video of the assault went viral. The police say the incident took place on April 10 and the arrests were made after a written complaint by the victim. Some of the accused in the case are from so-called upper castes.

"The aggrieved student had given a complaint at the police station after which those who assaulted him have been booked by the UP police under relevant sections of the law. The same video is now viral on social media," Ashok Singh, a senior police official said in a statement.

The victim is a class 10 student and lives with his widowed mother. Local reports suggest that the victim’s mother had worked in the fields of some of the accused and the boy had been asking them for money for the said work. This appears to have angered the accused who caught hold of the boy, abused and assaulted him and forced him to lick the feet of one of the accused men. However, the FIR filed in the case does not mention these specifics.