Ghaziabad — A Dalit youth committed suicide in Ghaziabad on Thursday evening after being harassed by his upper caste classmates for him being a Dalit.
20-year-old Vipin Verma from Shastri Nagar area of Ghaziabad hanged himself at his home, but his father Virendra Kumar lodged police complaint on Friday night, almost 24 hours later the incident took place.
Shlok Kumar, superintendent of police said that Neha Chaudhary and his friends Anu, Ankur and Arun were constantly harrasing Vipin since June 14 over his caste identity, and Vipin used to narrate the mental torture he was going through to his mother Bhagwati Devi. She would console him and would ask him to ignore the taunts.
Devi shared the issue with her husband Kumar, who phoned the trio on Thursday and pleaded them not to harass their son, they agreed not to harass Vipin anymore. But the same evening Vipin was found hanging himself to the ceiling.
Kumar in his police complaint mentioned that, “I am a Dalit and the accused are influential persons of higher caste, so my complaint was delayed and the accused are still at large.”
Police SI Shlok said, “We have registered the complaint, investigation is underway. We will arrest the accused soon.”
In a similar incident on May 22, a Mumbai-based gynaecologist Payal Tadvi commited suicide due to caste related harassment.
Communities listed under Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Scheduled Castes (SC) have been at the receiving end of caste discrimination, marginalisation and violence for centuries, despite Indian Government has introduced stringent laws to curb casteism. The issue is ignored at large.
