Opposition leaders on Thursday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Madhya Pradesh after a video on social media showed state police hitting a farmer with batons and forcibly evicting him from a spot of land in Guna district. His wife and others are seen pleading with the police to save him. The Dalit farmer couple in the video consumed poison to protest against an anti-encroachment drive.

“Our fight is against this ideology and injustice,” Gandhi tweeted.

The police and the district administration claimed that the couple were cultivating their crop on government-owned land. The couple’s children were witness to the assault and are seen clinging to their parents in the video. However, they were pushed away by the police.

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati also condemned the incident. “It is very cruel and shameful that in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna, police and administration in the name of an anti-encroachment drive with JCB machine destroyed the crop of a Dalit couple which they have grown by taking a loan and also to make them so helpless that they tried to commit suicide,” she tweeted. “The nationwide condemnation of this incident is natural. The government should take strict action.”

She also pointed out the double standards of the ruling party. “At one end the BJP propagates that it is settling Dalits, on the other hand, these kinds of incidents are getting common in the same way as it was during the Congress government,” Mayawati said. “Then what is the difference between the two governments, the Dalits should think about this.”

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath also criticised the state government. “A Dalit couple was mercilessly beaten up by the cops,” he tweeted. “What kind of jungle raj is this? If it was related to government land, it [the matter] can be legally resolved...but beating him, his wife and a kid is not justified...Stern action should be taken against those responsible for it.”

The parliamentary constituency of Guna is the traditional Lok Sabha seat of Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose switch to the Bharatiya Janata Party in March led to the collapse of the Congress government in the state. Scindia did not directly respond to Gandhi’s tweet, but said the incident was being investigated. “The Guna SP [Superintendent of Police] and collector have been removed, and inquiry has been sought into the incident,” he tweeted. “I am confident that action will be taken against all those who are responsible for this heinous act.”

Scindia had lost to BJP’s Krishna Pal Singh Yadav in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had also announced that the Guna collector and the superintendent of police have been removed from their posts after outrage over the assault. The couple – Ram Kumar Ahirwar and Savitri – are in a government-run hospital and in stable condition. The police have booked the couple as well as others for trying to obstruct public officials on duty.