Faeces in water tank for TN Dalits: 1 month on, no headway in case

The incident came to light in December last year after a local doctor told villagers to check for contamination in their drinking water since several children had fallen ill with vomiting and diarrhoea.

More than a month after Dalit families in the Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu registered a complaint regarding human faeces found inside an overhead water tank in their area, police are yet to make headway in arresting the accused, people close to developments said.

HT Image

The incident came to light in December last year after a local doctor told villagers to check for contamination in their drinking water since several children had fallen ill with vomiting and diarrhoea.

Three children had to be hospitalised, following which the local doctor told their parents to check if their drinking water was contaminated. When the villagers checked their overhead tank, they were horrified to find human faeces in the water.

Police registered three cases under the Indian Penal Code but no arrests have been made so far as the miscreants are yet to be identified, the above-cited people said.

Since the incident came to light, the 30-odd Dalit families have been using an alternative source of potable water arranged for by the district administration.

A day after the crime, district collector Kavitha Ramu and superintendent of police Vanditha Pandey led the Dalits to their local temple, where they have been denied entry for generations.

During the assembly session earlier this month, chief minister M K Stalin said that new water connections were given to the discriminated families, and medical professionals are continuing to camp there.

The chief minister was responding to a special call attention motion of MLAs on the incident. He added the investigation team questioned more than 70 people.

“We have questioned more than 80 people so far but haven’t made any arrests yet,” said a senior police official, requesting anonymity. Asked about the delay, the officer said, “The case was transferred to the CB-CID around 15 days back. We have handed over all the case files to them.”