Topic: Casteism in India

A Dalit boy was attacked and set afire by sprinkling petrol on his face by five upper-caste Hindu youths in Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh after the assailants accused the boy of stealing and consuming liquor that they had stocked. The boy denied the allegation.

Sanjeev Kumar, a Dalit youth and an egg-seller was faced casteist slurs and beaten brutally along with his family members including his elderly father and young daughter by the people associated with Hindu fringe group Bajrang Dal in Karma village of Rohtas district of Bihar on 7 June.

Vinod Bamnia, a 21-year-old Dalit youth and a Bhima Army member in Rajasthan died following a brutal assault by a group of men from the OBC community, two weeks after the assailants tore posters of Dr BR Ambedkar pasted outside his home.

The class XII student who went for a ride on her scooty with two school friends, was dragged from her two-wheeler, assaulted and gang-raped by six men in Bhagwanpur Dhimri village on May 31.

After almost 150 years of the Criminal Tribes Act and almost 70 years after the Habitual Offenders’ Act, the collective callousness of the police department has been the same and that has been hampering the lives of de-notified communities in significant, unimaginable ways.

The manual scavenging practice continues to kill people 28 years after the mandate and the authorities to curb it facilitate its existence.