Church official decries third incident this year insulting the historically downtrodden Dalit community
Dalit community leader Jignesh Mevani (center) at a rally in Gujarat on April 14, 2016, to protest against the flogging of Dalit youths for skinning dead cattle in Una village. (Photo: AFP)
An official of the Indian bishops has decried upper-caste Hindu men attacking and urinating on a man from the socially poor Dalit community, the third such incident in less than three months.
“I have no words to express my feelings. It is a heinous crime against any human being. How a person can do such a thing is beyond my imagination,” said Father Vijay Kumar Nayak, secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India’s office for Dalits and tribal people.
“It is a highly condemnable act and we should all seriously take note of it,” he told UCA News.
Kandru Kumar, a member of a former untouchable caste, from southern Andhra Pradesh was allegedly kidnapped and beaten up on Nov. 1 by six people from the upper-caste community.
One of them is accused of urinating on the 21-year-old Kumar, a resident of Sanjeevanagar Colony in Kanchikacherla.
Kumar was urinated on when he asked for water, media reports said quoting police.
Police officer P Subrahmanyam said Kumar was undergoing treatment in a government hospital.
Harish Reddy, the prime accused, and Kumar were friends and studied together for an engineering course.
Their friendship turned sour over a girl and he attacked Kumar with his friends, Subrahmanyam added.
On Nov. 1, Reddy pushed him into a car and thrashed him for hours.
Later, they left the victim at an isolated place and fled.
This is the second incident in Andhra Pradesh in three months and the third in the country.
On July 19, nine men attacked a Dalit man and urinated on him in Ongole city. Two of the accused were reported to be in an inebriated condition.
In July, a pro-Hindu party leader from Madhya Pradesh state urinated on a tribal person in Sidhi district.
The word Dalit refers to all groups who were once considered untouchable and outside of the four-tier Hindu caste system.
According to the official data, 201 million of India’s 1.4 billion people belong to the Dalit community. Nearly 60 percent of India’s 25 million Christians are of Dalit or tribal origin.
The National Crime Records Bureau report released on Aug. 29, 2022, said crimes against Dalits increased by 1.2 percent in 2021.
Northern Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan top the list in committing atrocities against the Dalit community, whose women often fall victim to gang rape and naked parading.
Justice for Dalit people will come only when upper caste people consider “Dalit men and women as human beings,” said Father Nayak.
“I am afraid it will not happen all of a sudden because it is deeply rooted in the society which considers Dalits as slaves,” the Divine Word priest added.
The priest further alleged that Dalit people hardly get any support from the government and civil society groups.