New Delhi: A young man from the Yadav community was beaten to death, allegedly by neighbours belonging to the Thakur community, for refusing to take down a video from the internet that the latter found objectionable.
Indian Express has reported that the incident took place in the village of Khuli Bari, in Prayagraj district of Uttar Pradesh. The village has a balance of Yadav and Thakur populations. Local police have claimed that the village does not have history of caste violence and this could have been a one-off incident.
However, the village has seen considerable tension since the violence and a large contingent of police has been posted there.
The victim’s family also held a demonstration on July 28, with his body, demanding monetary compensation and a job for one of the family members.
The deceased, who succumbed to his injuries at the hospital, was identified as 22-year-old Sonu Yadav. Four of the men who allegedly beat him with sticks – Shishu Pal Singh, his sons Preetam Singh and Piyam Singh, and their relative Shyam Singh – were arrested.
One of the Thakur men had first accosted Yadav, a farmer, asking him to remove the video uploaded by him on social media because they found it insulting to the Thakur community. When Yadav refused, a quarrel began, which villagers intervened to quell. On July 26, the same men assaulted Yadav fatally.
Police are looking into the involvement of other Thakur men in the murder.
Express has quoted two police officers, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Yamunapar, Saurabh Dixit, who said police has sent Yadav’s mobile phone for forensic examination, and Kaundhiyara Police Station station officer, Prince Dixit, who explained the chronology of the attack.
News of this attack comes in the immediate aftermath of move caste-based violence in Uttar Pradesh. Manoj Singh had recently reported from Azamgarh on how Uttar Pradesh police had chosen to wreak havoc in a Dalit village pradhan’s house and her relative’s houses with bulldozers and over 200 personnel, following a skirmish.
The Hathras incident of October 2020, where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was gang-raped and brutalised, leading to her death, by four Thakur men, had met with waves of outrage.