Their humiliation and torture came at the hands of two poultry farm owners who suspected the trio of stealing 5 kg of wheat, police said
Team Clarion
LUCKNOW — Three Dalit boys were mercilessly thrashed, tonsured and paraded with their faces blackened in Tajpur Tedia village under the Nanpara police station limits of Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district on suspicion of committing a theft.
Their humiliation and torture came at the hands of two poultry farm owners who suspected the trio of stealing 5 kg of wheat, police said.
The victims’ families claimed the duo tortured the boys as they did not report to the poultry farm for work.
In the incident reported on Tuesday, the accused allegedly thrashed the three boys, aged 12-14 years, shaved their heads, blackened their faces, wrote ‘thief’ on their forearms, and paraded them around the village with their hands tied, media reports quoted the police as saying.
Nanpara SHO Pradeep Singh said based on a complaint by the victims’ family members, a case was registered on Wednesday against four accused persons — Nazim Khan, Qasim Khan, Inayat, and Sanu — under relevant sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act.
Sanu, a former village head, is absconding, while the remaining three have been arrested, Singh said.
The victims, belonging to Dalit and OBC communities, told reporters on Wednesday that Nazim and Qasim, who together ran a poultry farm in the village, accused them of stealing 5 kg of wheat.
The duo allegedly hurled casteist slurs, and tried to strangle them with electric cables before parading them around the village with their heads shaved, faces blackened, and ‘thief’ written on their forearms, media reports cited them as saying.
Sanu and Inayat accompanied the accused and threatened the boys, they alleged.
The villagers claimed that the accused even filmed the act on their mobile phones.
The victim’s family members, meanwhile, claimed that Nazim and Qasim tortured the three boys since they did not report to the poultry farm for work.
Considering the sensitivity of the matter, adequate forces have been deployed in the village as a precautionary measure, the police said. — With inputs from PTI
