Sh. Yash Pal Singal, IPS

DGP Haryana

Police Headquarter,

Sector-6, Panchkula,

Haryana - 134109

24 August 2015

Subject: Request for action against persons committing atrocities on Dalit members in Dharaudi Village, Tehsil: Narvana, District: Jeend

Dear Sir,

This is to bring to your notice the ongoing tension emerging out of the conflict over distribution of land to below poverty line (BPL) members of Dalit community in Dharaudi Village in Narvana Tehsil, District Jeend.

On 22 May 2015, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM), a student group namely Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC) was ‘derecognised’ by the Dean of Students following an  advisory note received from the Under Secretary to the Human Resource Development Ministry, Government of India. The note from the MHRD referred to an anonymous complaint that APSC created “hatred” against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hindus, and subsequently tried to justify the action in the garb of ‘misuse of privileges’.

A joint team comprising Association for Democratic Rights (AFDR) from Punjab , People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) and Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) from Delhi visited Bhagana village of Hisar district on May 13, 2014 . The main purpose of this visit was to meet the villagers after the gruesome gang rape incident of the four Dalit girls earlier on March 23 by five men of the Jat community and to understand its links with the ongoing struggle that the Dalit community has been waging since May 2012 for access to common land.

Barely have the voices of the protests against sexual assault of four minor girls in Hisar district in Haryana subdued, another horrific display of sexual violence has occurred in Badayun district of Uttar Pradesh.  Two Dalit cousins – both minors – were brutally gang raped, murdered and hung from a tree on May 27, 2014. The hanging of the bodies from a tree in full display by dominant communities, which is reminiscent of the dark ages, is most condemnable. This is one among a growing number of incidents of sexual and caste violence.

This report discusses the account of attack on Pardhi community in September 2007 in Madhya Pradesh, a notified tribe, on the assumption of criminal nature of the Pardhi community. The attack demolished the entire village by the local farmers with active connivance of state machinery, including police and higher administration, politicians including MLA.  The displacement and destruction also included murder and gang rape.   While the administration seems to have actively engineered the conditions for the demolition, the police remained steadfastly inactive.

यह रिपोर्ट सितंबर 2007 मे  दक्षिण मध्य प्रदेश के चोठिया गाँव मे पारधी समुदाय पर स्थानीय किसानो द्वारा किए गए तहस नहस और उनके विस्थापन का ब्योरा देती है। इस घटना के दौरान पुलिस और उच्च प्रशासन की राज्य मशीनरी भी मौजूद थी। इलाके के विधायक और कई राजनैतिक नेताओं ने भी इस कार्यवाही को जायज ठहराया था। इस विध्वंस के दौरान हत्या और सामूहिक बलात्कार की घटनाओं का भी उल्लेख किया गया। स्थानीय कार्यकर्ताओं, वकीलों, और पत्रकारों के निरंतर प्रयासों के बाद केवल न्यायपालिका ही पारधीयों के बचाव के लिया आगे आई। 

२३ मई २०१२ को हरियाणा के हिसार जिले में भगाना गांव के ७० दलित परिवारों ने, मवेशियों समेत अपना गांव छोड़कर, हिसार शहर में स्थित मिनी सचिवालय के बहार अपना डेरा जमा लिया। समाचारों के मुताबिक वे अपने गांव के जाटों द्वारा किये जा रहे उत्पीड़न और जमीन पर कब्जे का विरोध कर रहे थे. इसी सन्दर्भ में पीपुल्स  यूनियन फॉर  डेमोक्रेटिक राइट्स, दिल्ली और एसोसिएशन फॉर डेमोक्रेटिक राइट्स, पंजाब ने २१ जून २०१२ को इस मामले कि एक संयुक्त जांच क़ी. 

On 23rd May reportedly 70 Dalit families from village Bhagana, Hisar District, Haryana left their village together with their cattle and settled themselves outside the Mini- Secretariat in Hisar town in Haryana. They were protesting against mounting oppression, and the appropriation of land by the Jats of their village. Among others these included denial of access to water sources, taking over of rights to common areas in the village, and of land on which they buried their animals, etc.

In the past few months, parts of north-western India have witnessed incidents of outright Dalit assertion of their rights related to access to resources and to a life of dignity. This has, in all cases, met with retaliation by the dominant upper or intermediary castes. After the Hisar incident, where hundreds of Dalits from Bhagana village had to come all the way up to Delhi on foot to voice  the suppression of their rights to land and an equal life, similar acts of oppression have been witnessed in Ramgarh village of Dadri Tehsil, GautamBuddh Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh. 

PUDR brings to your attention that fifty or so Dalit men have been sitting on dharna in Jantar Mantar from 2nd July. They are here for an indefinite period till they get justice. They have marched to Delhi on foot in 44 degree heat, having left Hisar town on 27th June.