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Dalit youth beaten up in Bihar for joining college |
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Tuesday, 30 November 1999 |
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A Dalit youth in Bihar was branded a Maoist, beaten and handed over to the police by upper caste men in East Champaran district. And his fault was that he had worn clean clothes and ‘dared’ to enrol himself in a college.
Premhansh Sah (20) of Koudiya village was beaten by the ‘babus’ or upper caste men of the village who abused him for daring to wear dark glasses and shoes in the village. The police let him off after they found him innocent. The police said Sah’s relatives told them that upper caste men ‘disliked it’ if a Dalit youth wore clean clothes and enrolled for higher education. “My son was disliked by the ‘babus’. They had warned him in the past to discontinue his education or face the consequences,” Sah’s widowed mother told police officials. “Some Dalit youths were forced to leave the village in fear after they had enrolled in college. They never returned to the village due to the terror of ‘babus’,” said Mahesh Sah, a Dalit. Villagers said a graduate Dalit youth had joined the Maoists after he was regularly beaten, humiliated and threatened by the upper caste men. Another educated Dalit migrated to Punjab in the face of threats. (Source: Deccan Chronicle) |
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