Diseased Devanand Manjhi (32), a resident of Adlipur Neura Mushhari Tola, in Patna, hails from Scheduled Caste (Mushahar) community and professes Hindu religion was shot dead at his refusal to work in the field of landlord Dablu Singh, Naresh Singh, Shiv Kumar, the resident of Kusari village, PS- Bihta in Patna District, belonging to General Caste on 25.07.08 at about 10.00 am

The motive behind the crime is that a few days ago accused Dablu Singh had given Rs100/- to Devanand to work in his field. Since it was raining for few days, he could not go for working. On 25.07.08 the perpetrators saw him working in the farm of one of the villagers, so the assailants got angry and asked how dared he to work in the field of another person. They abused and threatened him to punish for it. The perpetrators took him by force along with them from the farm and asked him to bring wine for them.  After the wine is brought the accused started drinking, and also they gave acid mixed wine to Devanand and forced him to drink. But when the diseased tried to escape the accused caught and tied him and forced to drink only acid and finally shot him dead.

A few hours later, Ramashish Manjhi, the brother of diseased was told by villagers that Devanand has been killed and his body is lying in the field. Ramashish Manjhi reached the spot, some villagers, who were witness to this killing, informed him that Devanand has been killed by Singh who forced him to drink acid as punishment of not working in the farm. The diseased Devanand was first forced to drink acid by Singh and their henchmen. Then acid was poured on his bare body and later he was mercilessly shot dead at his refusal to work. Dhruv Kumar Singh, the officer in-charge of Bihta police station, reached the spot and sent the body for postmortem. On 26th July 2008 Jitendra Kumar Sinha –District Magistrate, Patna, Amit Kumar – SSP, Patna, Sunil Kumar – SDM, Randir Kumar – DWO Patna visited the spot.

This crime has been registered on 25.07.08, FIR No - 183/08 u/s 302, 34 IPC & SC/ST (PoA) 3(1) x, 3(2) v, but the perpetrator is not yet arrested. Victim received compensation Rs. 1,50,000/ - from District administration, Rs. 1,500/- Panchayat, Rs. 10,000/- from Ms Kanti Singh - Union Minister of State. Accused is not arrested yet.

Centre for Dalit Rights is a voluntary organization, working for Dalits in Different Parts of Rajasthan through intervention on cases of grave violations of Dalits and weaker sections. On 17^th July 2008, the State office of Centre For Dalit Rights received a complaint from Nathu lal S/o Ramsahay (Caste –Bairwa) r/o Village Padasoli, Police Station Bassi, Tehsil Bassi, District Jaipur about alleged  encroachment of his land and abuse by a Non- Dalit.

On 24^th July 2008, four  member team from Centre for Dalit Rights, Jaipur namely, Gopal Ram verma, Tara Chand Verma , Babulal Bairwa (Chakwara), and Vinod Choudhury   went for  fact finding of the instant case to village – Padasoli, Tehsil – Bassi , District –Jaipur about 3:30 pm . The Fact finding team reached to the village and met the victim Nathulal and his wife. When the team started talking to the victim suddenly, a mob of 40-50 miscreant persons from the same village came there and attacked the fact finding team.

Some people caught the members of the team and started beating Nathulal and his wife brutally in front of the team. The mob also threatened the victims to cut their hands and legs and to throw them on agricultural land. The perpetrators also snatched and damaged the digital camera of the team. The miscreants used abusive language and threatened the team members to run away from the place. They also threaten them to damage the vehicle of the team. One perpetrator brought a (Fawda) agricultural tool to threat the team members to kill them. The team tried to defend themselves by talking to the perpetrators and negotiating the situation.

The vice Sarpanch of the village Rameshwar Meena took out the team from the spot and asked them to go back. Meanwhile, the team member told Rameshwar that their digital camera has been snatched by the miscreants. Rameshwar went back to the spot and brought the camera back. The team found that the chip of the camera was taken out. The team narrowly escaped from the spot and returned to Jaipur.

The members of the fact finding team and also the representatives of the organization called the Station House Officer (SHO) of Bassi Police Station and informed the incident to take proper action but so far no action has been taken. This clearly proves the reluctant attitudes of the local Police Station for visiting the spot to get the FIR lodged and manage to send the injured person specially the wife of Nathulal for medical examination.

Case in Brief:

Vaivaka of Mudinepalli mandal and Pedda Thumiddi of Bantumilli mandal are adjacent villages in Krishna district. These villages have heterogeneous community and consists a sizable number of dalits. These villages have a vast stretch of assigned lands totaling to 3400 acres approximately. The dalits were assigned small bits of land by government and the major portion left over was unlawfully occupied by the non dalits in the form of land allocation to Ex-Servicemen of other districts by forging the documents. The small amount of the land assigned to the dalits was alienated by many landlords and are continuously harassing the dalits, even the land allotted for house sites and the burial ground was also alienated. The situation has gone to an extent that the total land grabbed was converted into fish tank and the land amidst the houses of the dalits was also converted into fish tanks leading to drowning of a dalit boy. A land grabbing case was registered based on the complaint by S.Vimala Devi, K.Gnanasundaramma and others

Present Status of the case:

A thorough enquiry was done and the report was submitted to the government and no concrete action has been taken until now. The dalits waged a continuous battle with the support of DSS and even gone to a stage of occupying back their lands. False cases were booked against the dalits, similarly a bind over case has been registered over the dalits. The dalits of Vaivaka have filed a private complaint in the Court at Kaikalur pertaining to 94 acres and the government too registered a case on the land grabbers. The court trials of both the cases are going on at present. Still the land grabbers are trying to register false cases against the dalits as they are not yielding to them.   

Village Dhondi ka Pura, is situated in Tehsil- Bari, District – Dholpur, and 327 Kms from Jaipur under the jurisdiction of Bari Police Station. Gurjjar community is dominants in this village as there are presently 20 families of Gujjar, 3 families of Jatav and 1 family of Koli residing in this village. Earlier there were 8 families of Jatav and 25 families of Koli were residing in this village but due to continuous torture and fear of Gujjar community they were forced to migrate to other places. Later on Gujjar grabbed the land and houses of these families. Since last 15 years ago, the Koli community and the Jatav community were allotted land but whenever they farmed it the Gujjar community people chased them and throw them out from their land. And all Dalit who resided in the village had been continuously harassed by the Dacoit Vakila Gijjar.

Since 2004 Vakila Gijjar has been torturing Ratan lal and his family members belong to Dalit community. The main reason was to make them to vacate the village and occupy the land. On 14th January 2004 he killed Mukesh Jatav s/o Fodliya jatav, son in law of Ratan lal and also he thrown the pipes and motor pump of Dalits in a well and burnt all the things. Later Vakila and his companion broke the leg and hands of Ratan lal’s wife. Even after this incident the Ratan’s family was very strong and not ready to leave the village. On December 2006, Rajbahadur alias Moni baba brother of one Rambabu Thakur of village Rewai was killed by an unknown person and the dead body was thrown to farm land of the victims. Seven days later, Kirti Gujjar gave false information to the police that Ratan lal and his son Kamal and Bhawar are the offenders in this case. Intentionally he became the witness of the incident. The innocent people were arrested, later bailed out and they paid 2.5 lakhs rupees as compensation by selling his tractor. With the intention of push out Ratan lal’s family from the village Gujjar did all these things. Even after the incident, they were not ready to leave the village.

The raged Gujjar, Thakur community finally on July 9, 2008 around  9:30 am when Jaipal Singh, Ratan lal, his elder brother Nathi, younger brother Ramswarup along with Bhawar lal and Pappu went for labour work for NREGA project, on the way Totapura Jungle , the perpetrators  Kirti, Suresh , Birma, Chandravan s/o Jalim Gujjar , Puran Gujjar and his  two sons, Raju and Bhagwan singh, Suresh, Guddu, Kalla, and Bablu s/o Rambabu came with Rifle, Katta, Kulhari and Farsa (agricultural tool)on the work site of NREGA attacked on them very inhumanly. In this attack Nathi, Ratanlal, and Ramswarup were burnt very cruelly. And also they burnt alive Rambir belonging to Jatav community who came to rescue them. After that the perpetrators cut all the bodies into pieces with sharp weapons and threw into the field. During the firing Deependra s/o Pappu Jatav, three years old child was also injured who is still under medication in hospital.

Case is under investigation by CID (CB). Compensation of Rs. 2Lk paid to each deceased’s family.  Accused are not arrested.