Following the brutal murder of two Dalit children in Harayana by burning them alive, allegedly by attackers from a higher caste, much deserved attention has been brought to the issue of Dalit atrocities in the country. In spite of anti-caste movements taking root decades ago in India, atrocities against Dalits continue unabated and often go unreported.
In the Haryana incident, the blaze that killed the two Dalit children was set off allegedly by a group of upper caste people in the village who had been engaged in a feud with the family for months.
Similar incidents have been happening across the country.
Even as the nation witnessed protests in Haryana, in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai district, a group of Dalits were pelted at with stones and some of their vehicles vandalized reportedly by members from caste-Hindu groups. This was following a heated argument earlier in their day between two communities over Dalits entering the temple, in spite of court orders that allowed them to do so. Dalits were attacked, injuring some of them. Vehicles were set on fire and vandalized, and tension simmers in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu.
In the first week of October 2015, two Dalit youths were abducted and killed over an old enmity by a group of people at Nimla village in Sirsa. Their bodies were later recovered from an upper caste villager's house, reported The Times of India.
In June 2015, a Dalit girl was allegedly beaten up by higher caste women in a village in Madhya Pradesh after her shadow fell on an upper caste man.
In the same month, a Dalit woman was gang raped, her body torn into pieces and set on fire in a village in Agra.
On June 23, 2015, Gokulraj, a 21-year-old Dalit youngster was last seen along with a female friend at the Thiruchengode Arthanareeshwarar temple in Tamil Nadu. His headless body was found by the railway tracks on June 24, in Namakkal district. A post-mortem has reportedly shown that he was strangulated and stabbed in the neck. After more than 100 days of evading the police, a caste leader and prime accused in the murder, Yuvaraj surrendered to the police.
On March 19th 2015, the headless bodies of two Dalit labourers, Krishnayya and Nanjayya were found in Chamrajnagar, 60 kilometers away from Mysuru. Just 50 feet away from the bodies, the alleged murderer and plantation owner Mahadevan was found hiding in the bushes. The villagers allege that Mahadeva was a well known sorcerer and that it was definitely a case of witch craft and human sacrifice. Surprisingly enough, this incident only appeared as a brief report in the crime columns on most newspapers. “When Dalits are not allowed entry into temples, how can they be offered in sacrifice?” Siddaraju, State Coordinator of the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights asked The Hindustan Times, a paper that covered this incident in elaborate detail. The irony is that Dalits remain to be the most sought after for human sacrifices to Gods and Goddesses.
In January 2011, the body of a five year old was found in a small town of Madurai district with her throat slit and her left eye gorged out. After investigations, it was found that a DMK functionary was the mastermind behind this murder. Ayub Khan confessed that he wanted to procure 2.5 litres of blood of a child to sprinkle at the site of the ongoing construction of his Royal College of Education.