Eight people were arrested for beating up a 16-year-old Dalit boy and making him lick the feet of a man in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli district, police said on Tuesday. A video of the incident went viral on Monday.
According to the police, the incident took place on April 10, when the boy was forcefully taken to a garden around five kilometres away from his house on a motorcycle and allegedly beaten up.
A video of the accused beating up and forcing the boy to lick the feet of one of the men was recorded and circulated on social media on Monday. After the video went viral, the boy and his mother reached Kotwali police station and lodged a complaint.
According to additional superintendent of police, Vishwajeet Srivastava, the reason behind the incident was a dispute at school.
{{/usCountry}}According to additional superintendent of police, Vishwajeet Srivastava, the reason behind the incident was a dispute at school.
{{/usCountry}}Srivastava said an FIR under sections IPC sections 323 ( voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (insult), 506 (criminal intimidation) as well as charges of the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, was registered in the matter and eight accused people have been arrested. Police have been deployed in the village to avoid any untoward incident.
The mother of the boy said: “We want justice. They made my son lick their toes and soles of their feet”.
The incident triggered sharp reactions from political parties with Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav calling for “equal respect to every caste and class”.
“In a democracy, treating every citizen as equal with heart and giving equal respect to every caste and class without discrimination is true social justice. There should be no place for the dominance of any one caste class in a democracy. The SP is always committed to equality in social relations rather than discrimination or exploitation,” the SP chief tweeted, after meeting the victim and his family.