Upon a 9 year-old Dalit boy’s death in Ahmedabad hospital, (he was originally from Jalore of Rajasthan ), his family members accused a school teacher of assualt, because of which the child led to his ultimate demise. The teacher’s reason for beating the child to death was merely the fact that the boy drank water from a pot meant for upper caste people.
The accused teacher has been accordingly arrested and booked for murder under the SC/ ST Act.
Jalore SP Harsh Vardhan Agarwalla, said “ We have registered an FIR under relevant sections, including murder (IPC) and SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The boy’s postmortem will be conducted and a police team has been sent to Ahmedabad. Further investigation is being conducted,” Dewaram Meghwal,. The Father of the ward said that his son Indra Kumar, a student of Class 3 at Saraswati Vidya Mandir in Jalore, was tortured by his teacher Chail Singh simply because he drank water from an earthen pot meant for Singh. The father says that his son did not know that the pot belonged to an upper caste member, that is Singh.
The family wrote a complaint letter to the Saila police station on Saturday which said that Indra was beaten up by Singh, who abused him with casteist slurs as well. All of this is just for drinking water from an earthen pot.The letter also says that Indra has sustained injuries in his right ear and eye due to being beaten by Singh. Meghwal shared that his son’s condition only deteriorated over time and he had to be hospitalized. He said “There was bleeding from his ear and thereafter, he couldn’t move one side of his body. His eye was sore and we admitted him to hospitals in Jalore, Bhinmal, Udaipur before he was referred to Ahmedabad. My son passed away today [Saturday] afternoon. Caste discrimination is responsible for his death,”
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot commented in a tweet that the death of a child due to harassment by a teacher is sad. He furthjer said that the accused has been arrested and a case has been registered against him for murder and under sections of the SC/ST act. He also said that the family members of the deceased will be given a relief amount of Rs 5 lakh from the Chief Minister’s relief fund.He said besides the fund it will be ensured that the victim’s family gets justice at the earliest.
Earlier, the Opposition BJP had questioned the Gehlot government over the child’s death. “Who is responsible for this? Mr Chief Minister, a student from an underprivileged category is not safe in your rule. The aggrieved family should be helped and swift action should be taken against the accused,” tweeted state BJP president Satish Poonia on Saturday.
