Gujarat – A Dalit couple was beaten up by a mob of 200-300 upper-caste Hindus on Monday for posting on Facebook against the blockade of Dalit marriages in the village temples in Mahuvad village in Padra district of Vadodara-Gujarat. However, Police booked the husband for promoting enmity between two groups.
Pravin Mackwana, husband of Tarulataben Mackwana posted on his Facebook about the age-old Hindu practice of blocking Dalits from performing marriage ceremonies in temples.
Pravin posted on 14 May, “Your democratic BJP government doesn’t let the premise of Ranchodji temple in Mahuvad village of Padra taluka of Vadodara be rented out to the Dalit community for wedding ceremonies,” following this in the comment section people abused the Rajput community.
Soon after the post, the couple started receiving threats to delete the post.
Over 200-300 people of upper-Hindu caste under 11 men’s provocation armed with pipes, sticks, and other weapons arrived at the couple’s house and started shouting abusive words. The couple accused that they slapped Tarulataben when she stepped out of her house to confront them and then barged into the house to drag Pravin out of the house.
Tarulataben filed FIR against the 11 accused people and the other 200-300, but the case turned ugly when the Secretary-General of Rajput Shakti Yuva Sangathan’s Padra unit Kiran Padhiyar reversed the case on Pravin Mackwana for promoting enmity between different groups.
The 11 people named in the FIR are Chaitanyasinh Jhala, Dilip Parmar, Mayursinh Jhala, Dilipsinh Rajput, Mahesh Jadav, Kishan Parmar, Sanjaysinh Parmar, Arjun Parmar, Arvind Parmar, Naresh Parmar and Ajay Parmar, all residents of Mahuvad.
The police have booked the accused under Sections 143 (member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (Punishment for rioting), 149 (Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 452 (House-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint), 336 (Act endangering life or personal safety of others), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (2) (Punishment for criminal intimidation) and under relevant sections of the SC/ST Prevention of the Atrocities Act of IPC.
Pravin is booked under sections 153 1 (a) and (b) (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language), 294 (Obscene acts and songs) and 406 (Punishment for criminal breach of trust) of IPC.
No arrests have been made so far, but 24/7 patrolling teams was immediately deployed in the village.
“We are recording the statements of the villagers and the eyewitnesses in the case. We are yet to arrest anybody named in the FIR,” the investigating officer in the case, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vadodara Rural, Ravindra Patel said.
Disclaimer: Feature Picture is a Representation. It’s not from the Actual Incident.
