The Delhi High Court today on Friday convicted 33 people in a Dalit killing case of the year 2010 that had happened in the Hisar district of Haryana and stated, “71 years of independence, instances of atrocities against the Scheduled Castes by those belonging to dominant castes have shown no sign of abating”.
A bench of Justice Muralidhar and Justice I. S. Mehta said, “The incidents that took place in Mirchpur between April 19-21, 2010 serve as yet another grim reminder of “the complete absence of two things in Indian society” as noted by Dr B.R. Ambedkar when he tabled the final draft of the Constitution of India before the Constituent Assembly on November 25 1949”.
The bench making staunch remarks against the “planned attack” said, “One was ‘equality’ and the other, fraternity” and said this attack planted by the community of Jat against the Valmikis during the incident led to the dislocation of 254 Dalit families from the village of Mirchpur.
The court further added, “The unstated footnote is that those who had decided to stay back at Mirchpur village did not support the prosecution in the present criminal trial while those who decided not to return are the ones who did”.
It said, “This in itself is a telling commentary on the fear and intimidation that the Dalits still experience in Mirchpur as a result of the incidents of April 19, 20 and 21 2010.”
The government also logged that the Haryana government seeks to rehabilitate the dislocated families not in Mirchpur but in a different township terming it to be “a sobering fact”.
In the 209-page order, the court stated, “The question is whether this accords with the constitutional promise of equality, social justice and fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual”.
More so, the court had convicted 20 more accused people who had been previously acquitted by the court. The court directed the 20 more convicts to surrender on or before September 1, 2018, failing which the Station House Officer of Narnaund, Haryana will take all necessary steps to take them into custody.
In the year 2010, a 70-year-old Tarachand and his 18-year-old physically challenged daughter Suman were killed in an arson attack on their house in the month of April and a line of other houses of Dalits in the village of Mirchpur which is about 300 kms away from the city of Chandigarh. A total number of 97 people were facing the trial in the case. The attack happened after a dispute flared up between the members of the Dalit and the Jat communities of the village.
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