At Old Jail Road, in the district & town Nawada a colony of Dalits is situated where the Govt. Middle School is built. The school is 80% Dalit students Populace. Out of 92 families 70 families belong to the SC (Chamar) community which constitutes almost 77% of the total families. Despite the high population of Dalits in the colony as well as in the school Dalits are treated as untouchables. Dalits of the colony are engaged in the traditional occupation of leather works (shoe making and shoe mending). It appears that the school teachers (13 teachers) including the headmistress Kumari Vimla (57) are all non Dalits.

Moreover they are all caste minded teachers. The headmistress of the school, as the Dalit students (Prantosh Kumar Das (12) s/o Gauri Ravidas; Vikas Kumar (11) s/o Naresh Das; Chandan Kumar (12) s/o Kameshwar Das; Mithlesh Kumar (13) s/o late Ramesh Das) complain that they are forced to throw their copies and books to her - “our head teacher asks us to keep our home work copies either at her feet or throw the copies to her from a distance”. The head teacher even states, “Tumlog Chamar ke bachhe ho isliye hamse mat sato. Door se hi apni copy do.”(Don’t touch me you children of Chamars. Give me your copies and books from a far.)

However the complaints against her are cited ever since she took charge of the school. The mid day meal to the school children was served for two months and then stopped. She all the time disregarded the Dalit students who constituted 90% of total students. On hearing the regular complaints against the headmistress by the Dalit students, Mr. Gauri Ravidas (50) s/o late Somar Ram together with some of the villagers wrote an open letter to the Chief Minister, Minister for Human Resource Management, Deputy Minister for HRD Patna, District Magistrate Nawada and Opposition Leader Smt. Rabri Devi on 5.3.2007 demanding the immediate arrest, dismissal and termination of the Headmistress Kumari Vimla accusing her that she practiced “Untouchability Practices.” The District Education ministry set an enquiry team to study the situation. The enquiry team members (Rana Ranjeet Pratap Sinha – DM) found it true and Kumari Vimla and two assistant teachers, Arun Kumar Subodh(58) and Manoj Kumar Jha(35) who were referred by Kumari Vimla herself for the two always opposed her way of dealings with the students, were dismissed on 30.4.2007. The news was published in the Daily News paper Dainik Jagaran on 4.5.2007

So much so the police especially the DM Rana Ranjeet Pratap Sinha took interest in the case only when the complaint letters were sent to higher authorities. As a result the enquiry was conducted by the DM himself of 28.3.2007. Finally the accused Kumari Vimla was dismissed together with innocent teachers Arun Kumar Subodh and Manoj Kumar Jha.

Maruti Subhanrao Kamble is r/o Main Road, in front of Deepak Pan Stall, Ramling mudgad village under Kasashirse police staton in Lathur Dist., belongs to scheduled caste community. Maruti Subhanrao Kamble is the head of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Jayanti Association. The celebration of Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti did not appeal to dominant caste people of the village due to untouchability practice. Thus while the dalit community preparing for celebration of Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti, the dominant caste people disrupted the statue of Dr. Ambedkar.

The dalit community led by Maruti Subhanrao Kamble lodged complaint in Kasashirse police station on 28.04.07. The case was registered as No.17/07, u/s 336, 295, 323 34 IPC, however SC/ST PoA Act was invoked in FIR. Accused arrested but released on bail. Charge sheet in the case is filed only under IPC Sections .Case is under trial. 

Late Madhukar Ghatge (39) who was the sole earning member of his 4 member family (Hemlata (37) w/o late Madhukar Ghatge, Tusar (20) son, Suraj (18) son and Asmita (16) his only daughter) as he was an employee of the Indian Railway at Mumbai. He was a well off person in all respects i.e. economically, politically, socially. Because of his efforts there was a BPL ration booth, village road and a Dalit sub – Surpanch which made him die since non Dalits were jealous of him. Since he owned 2 acres of land he used to go to the village for farming intermittently.

For digging a well in his own field for the purpose of irrigation, he was hacked to death by the perpetrators Bhivaji Kapse(55); Dadasahab Kapse, 24, s/o Bhivaji Kapse; Bhimrao Shadge, 45, s/o Rajaram Shadge; Navnath Kapse(21) s/o Bhivaji; Sambhaji Wagh(32) s/o Shivaji Wagh; Appa Wagh(30) s/o Dhondiba Wagh; Shivaji Wagh(35); Narayan Chavan(33) s/o Bhagwan Charan; Shankar Chavan(35) s/o Bhawan Chavan; Tukaram Nikam(40) s/o Bhiku; Anil Shikalgar(25) s/o Allabuksh; Ravindra Pandekar(38) s/o Namdave; Amar Kurkarni(35) s/o Sudhakar; Krushnaraj Shedge(45) s/o Gangaram from Kulakjai village, Man Taluka in Satara District, who all belonged to dominant caste. The perpetrators did not want him to be superior to them.

Moreover they objected him not to dig a well in his field. The reason they gave was that if he would dig his well then the other wells which are close by will dry soon. Though Late Madhukar having got the well passed under JRY scheme and had taken the No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the village Panchayat, the perpetrators did not want him to dig the well for the purpose of irrigation. And therefore, the perpetrators as per their plan hacked him to death when he was off to his field nearly a kilometer away from Kulakjai village after having started the digging of the well on 26.4.2007. Waiting for his coming to the field at about 7-8pm the accused attacked Madhukar with axe, knives, sticks other sharp edged weapons from all sides and left him almost dead. Meanwhile Vaibhav the son of Subhash Bajirao a relative and Anil Bhagwan Ghatge saw him being beaten up by the accused and ran to his rescue.[K1]  On seeing those coming towards them the perpetrators ran away from there, leaving him almost dead. Vaibhav and Anil Bhagwan were on motorcycle (MH-11-1151) happened to pass by and took Madhukar on the motorcycle to a Private Hospital Malwadi 10km from the village.

By the time someone (who) had informed the police about the incident and the perpetrators too registered the case against the victim in Satara police station. The police had asked them to go to the same hospital for their medical checkup. The victim died while the treatment had started. Looking at the death of the victim, the police arrested 12 accused. 10 of them were kept under police custody and 2 of them were under Magistrate custody. The case was registered [K2] u/s 302, 32 IPC and 3(2)V SC/ST POA 1989. Then after the dead body of late Madhukar was sent for the Postmortum on 27.4.2007 and handed the body to the family for the last ceremony. No compensation has been given to the family of late Madhukar. The case is under trial. Shri Arwind Gayakwad (DSP) of Dahiwadi police station (Ph. 02162-230232) is investigating the case still who had promised the FF team for immediate filing of Charge sheet in the district court.

 [K1]Relationship is doubtful and no age is mentioned.

 [K2]FIR no.?

Case in Brief

Daarla Durga, aged 8 years, D/o Daarla Venkateshwara Rao, R/o Munjuluru, Bantumilli mandal, Machlipatnam, Krishna district was raped by Koonapa Peddanaga Raju, aged 40 years, R/o Munuluru, Bantumilli mandal, Machlipatnam, Krishna, Occ: Landlord, OC Kapu by caste on 24th April 2007, while her parents were working in his field.  Peddanaga Raju called Durga and said that he would pluck fruits and give her and took her into the garden and raped her.  He threatened that if she reveals the incident to any one he would kill her and her family.  Afraid by the threat she said that she would not speak even a word about that.  When he left, she ran to her parents with blood stained dress and narrated that incident.  They took her to the police station and got the case registered.  The same was reported to the collector, RDO, Social Welfare Officer and the girl was taken to the hospital.