Porbandar Dalit murder: Family claim body, bury him in burial ground

Raju Singrakhiya, 22-year-old nephew of Rama (42), claimed the victim’s body in the wee hours of Sunday and the family performed his last rites in the afternoon. Rama was buried in the burial ground for Dalits even as his friends claimed that family’s demand of allowing them to take his body to Porbandar was rejected by police.

An illiterate Dalit, Rama was allegedly assaulted by a mob of uppercaste Mer community led by Sodhana village sarpanch Harbham Karavadra and 40 others on Wednesday when he went to the village for sowing caster seeds in a plot of land, which, he claimed, he had been cultivating for the last 15 years.

[related-post]

Watch Video: What’s making news

The mob attacked him with wooden clubs and axes and also injured Govind Pandavadra and Vijay Madhavji—two men whom Rama had engaged as labourers. Rama died in PDU General Hospital in Rajkot on Thursday while undergoing treatment while the two injured are still in hospital.

However, Rama’s family refused to claim his body from Jamnagar morgue. Raju, Rama’s elder brother Khima and elder sister Veji Pandavadra sat on dharna in Porbandar city saying they will claim the body only if they were allowed to bury Rama on the land he was cultivating and on which he was killed.

They also demanded arrest of accused and protection for witnesses as well as transfer of local police sub-inspector. Rama’s friends Suman Chavda and Rahul Dangar had been leading the sit-in in Ambedkar Park near the office of Porbandar superintendent of police. The standoff had continued till later Saturday evening.

But the protest came to an end hours after Chavda, a Dalit and Dangar, a Darbar were picked up by Kirtimandir police in Porbandar on Saturday afternoon from Ambedkar Park and arrested after Vrajlal Pandavadra, another Dalit, filed a complaint against them alleging the duo beat him up on June 13.

Minutes after whisking the duo away, police asked Rama’s family members and other protesters to vacate Ambedkar Park telling them they did not have permission to hold protests. The Dalit group had then camped outside the office of Porbandar collector. But the duo were released on bail later on Saturday evening even as Raju told police he was ready to claim Rama’s body.

“Chavda has been supporting us for a long time. Without him, it was difficult. After that, police officers came to me, asked me to sign papers and claim the body. I agreed but demanded that we be allowed to bury my uncle on the land he was cultivating. But police said no. They said no to even taking the body to Porbandar. We had no option,” said Raju.

Meanwhile, police arrested sarpanch Harbham Karavadra, Bhupat Agrowala and Jaymal Mer on Sunday for their alleged role in assault on Rama and two others. With this, the number of arrests has gone up to six. Police had arrested former Sodhana sarpanch Parbat Karavadra, Lakhu Mer and Nilesh Babbar on Friday and a local court had sent them to police custody for five days on Saturday.

Porbandar district collector Dinesh Patel said the issue had been resolved. “Their demand was not reasonable at any cost. The signal was sound, clear and strong (from administration)… It was totally unjust demand. Wise people cannot demand like this,” the collector said adding the protest was to “pressurise” the administration.

Police say Rama and Harbham had a longstanding dispute over cultivating 19 bigha of land located on Bhomiyavadar road on the eastern periphery of Sodhana village. Rama had claimed that the land he was cultivating for the last 15 years was government wasteland. But uppercaste Mer community was protesting it saying it was gauchar or grasing land which belonged to the village panchayat and that Rama’s activities amounted to encroachment.

Rama had filed a complaint against Harbham and others after they allegedly set fire to his standing crop on this dispute land last year. His friends allege that 96 others belonging to Mer community are also cultivating other parts of 2400 bigha gauchar land and that the panchayat is turning a blind eye to them.

Porbandar taluka mamlatdar Vipul Purohit confirmed to The Indian Express that the land Rama was cultivating was indeed gauchar and that his application for regularising that piece of land had been rejected by district collector twice. Sodhana has population of around 8,000 and is dominated by Mer. Around 300 Dalit families, almost all of them landless, also live in the village.

Porbandar SP Tarun Kumar Duggal said the village was calm during the funeral. “We were in constant talk with them. We convinced them that the case had been registered under proper Sections (of IPC)… In the FIR, six accused were named and 25 were unknown people. All the six accused have been caught. We are proceeding with the investigation in a very neutral way… They were convinced last night,” said the SP.

Rama was a native of Sodhana. But he had migrated to Porbandar some eight months ago due to conflict with the villagers. After the funeral, his family members left for Porbandar even as police deployment continued in Sodhana.