A 62-year-old Dalit woman, Sheela Devi, was crushed to death and five others seriously injured after a group of upper-caste Hindu men allegedly ran them over multiple times with an SUV in a targeted attack late Monday night in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr.
The attack followed a confrontation over rash driving and was preceded by casteist slurs, according to eyewitnesses and police reports.
The incident took place in Sunehra village of Bulandshahr district, where Sheela Devi was sitting outside her home when a Mahindra Thar SUV approached at high speed.
A local man, Bhupendra, reportedly shouted at the driver, “Brother, drive slowly,” prompting the occupants — identified as Tapesh Singh and his son Priyanshu Singh — to exit the vehicle and hurl caste-based abuses at the residents.
According to the complaint filed with the police, the father-son duo left the scene only to return about 10 minutes later with four more men — all armed. Without warning, the group allegedly drove the SUV directly into the people gathered outside their homes, then reversed and ran over them again multiple times.
“The vehicle was driven forward and backward several times with the intention of killing them,” stated the complainant. Sheela Devi died on the spot. Five others, including both men and women from the same Dalit neighborhood, were rushed to the district hospital in Bulandshahr with serious injuries.
The brutal nature of the assault — captured in disturbing videos circulating widely on social media — has sparked outrage across the region. The videos show the SUV mowing down people as bystanders scream, followed by the assailants fleeing the scene.
Bulandshahr City Superintendent of Police Shanker Prasad confirmed, “We have registered an FIR against six men — Tapesh Kumar, his son Priyanshu, and their associates Varun Kumar, Atul Singh, Krishna Singh, and Manav Kumar — under BNS sections 103 (murder), 109 (attempt to murder), 351 (criminal intimidation), 191 (rioting), and relevant sections of the SC/ST Act. A dedicated team has been constituted to apprehend the accused, who are currently absconding.”
