Seven men from an upper caste Hindu community chopped off the thumb of a 30-year-old Dalit man with a sword at Kakoshi village in Gujarat’s Patan district on Sunday.
The attacked was identified as Kirti Parmar.
The brutal attack comes after Kirti’s brother, Dhiraj, had objected to members of the upper caste Hindu community scolding his nephew for picking up a cricket ball when they were playing in a school playground.
According to Dhiraj Parmar, the assailants are Kuldeepsinh Rajput, Siddhrajsinh Rajput, Rajdeepsinh Darbar, Jaswantsinh Rajput, Chakubha Lakshmanji, Mahendrasinh Rajpur, all residents of Sidhpur, and an unknown man.
He also filed a complaint at Kakoshi police station on Monday.
In the police complaint, Dhiraj said Kuldeep had scolded his nephew for picking up the ball when Kuldeep and the others were playing cricket in the playground of ID Selia High School. Dhiraj said he had intervened and stopped Kuldeep from scolding his nephew. Then, the upper-caste Hindu men even took Dhiraj’s mobile phone number, saying they would teach him a lesson after the match.
After the match, Kuldeep and about 10 others went to Dhiraj and Kirti, and began fighting with them. At around 6.30pm on Sunday, Kuldeep and his men struck him with a sword, chopping off the thumb of Kirti’s left hand and wounding him on his right hand. They also beat him up badly and left him there unconscious.
He was later shifted to a hospital near Vaishnodevi Circle in Ahmedabad, where his condition is said to be stable.
The in-charge SP of Patan, Vishakha Dabral, said two men have been arrested and teams have been formed to nab the others involved, Times of India reported.
The case against 7 men registered for rioting, voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons, causing hurt, criminal intimidation and using abusive words along with the charges under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against seven men.
