Rahul Gandhi accuses BJP, RSS of ‘poisonous politics’ after Dalit boys are beaten up in Maharashtra
Two teenage boys were assaulted by upper caste villagers for jumping into a well to cool off in Vakadi early this week.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party of perpetrating “poisonous politics” after two Dalit boys were assaulted in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district. They were beaten apparently for swimming in the well.
The alleged incident took place on June 10, but the police acted only after a video of it went viral on Thursday. The police have arrested two people in connection with the assault.
“The mere offence of these Dalit children in Maharashtra was that they were bathing in a ‘golden’ well,” Gandhi said on Twitter as he shared a video of the assault. “Even humanity is trying today to save itself with the support of the last straw. History will never forgive us if we do not oppose the poisonous politics of hatred by RSS or BJP’s ‘Manuwaad’.”
The boys, who are in their early teens, had reportedly jumped into the well to cool off in the summer heat in Vakadi village. Villagers, many from the upper castes, allegedly pulled two of them out, stripped them and paraded them naked around the village, IANS reported. A video of the incident showed the boys covering themselves with leaves as two men rebuked and whipped them.
Union Social Justice Minister Ramdas Athawale condemned the incident, and demanded “stringent action against the perpetrators”. State minister Chandrakant Patil said action would be taken under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. “Such incidents cannot be tolerated,” he said, according to The Indian Express.
The two arrested men were booked under the Prevention of Atrocities Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, The New Indian Express reported.