A sessions court in Veraval of Gir Somnath district on Monday convicted five persons and acquitted 35 others in the 2016 Una flogging case in which four Dalit men were thrashed and allegedly paraded by self-styled cow vigilantes, triggering massive protests across the country at that time.
The court of Additional Sessions Judge Jignesh Pandya posted the hearing for Tuesday to determine the convicts’ sentence.
As the court pronounced the judgment from a small court room on the first floor of the building, Vashram Sarvaiya — one of the victims and the complainant – accompanied by his father Balu Sarvaiya, social activist Manjula Pradeep and some others immediately left the court building.
Looking dejected, Vashram said, “This is a sad judgment and we are not satisfied with it. We will challenge it in the High Court and up to the Supreme Court.”
Similar feelings were expressed by his father Balu Sarvaiya who said that they will fight the case right up to the Supreme Court.
District Government Pleader Ketansinh Vala, who appeared on behalf of the prosecution, said in a statement that the Special Atrocity Court of Additional District Judge Jignesh Pandya has convicted the five accused under relevant provisions of the IPC and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Vala said that the five have been convicted on charges such as voluntarily causing hurt using dangerous weapons, wrongful confinement and intentional insult to provoke breach of peace and humiliating the members of the Scheduled Caste communities.
The five convicts have been identified as Ramesh Jadav, Rakesh Joshi, Nagjibhai Vaniya, Pramodgiri Gausvami and Balvantgiri Gausvami.
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A total of 41 persons were facing criminal trial in the case, including four policemen from Una police station. The four included the then police inspector Nirmalsinh Zala, the then police sub-inspector Narendradev Pandey, the then assistant sub-inspector Kanchan Parmar and the then head constable Kanjibhai Chudasama. During the trial Zala had died so the case was abated against him. The remaining three police officials underwent the trial and all of them were acquitted by the sessions court. The three policemen were facing charges of abetting the accused, neglect of duties, framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury, forgery of record of public register, etc.
The accused were facing charges such as attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy, attempting to cause grievous hurt, dacoity, kidnapping, assault or criminal force used against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty, wrongful confinement, rioting with deadly weapon, unlawful assembly, voluntarily causing hurt, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, voluntarily causing hurt using dangerous weapons or means, criminal intimidation, sending offensive messages etc under the provisions of the IPC and allied charges under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act) and Information Technology Act.
V C Mavadhiya, one of the defense lawyers, said, “There were so many persons involved in the ‘so-called incident’. The prosecution could not bring it up if who did what either in its complaint or in its testimony before the court. Therefore, the court has not found the offence against 35 accused as proved.”
Three of the five convicts are being represented by Mavadhiya. He said that all the convicts face charges for which there can be a maximum five years’ sentence. He added that all the convicts have spent more than five years in jail. “My clients will take the decision whether to challenge the court order in the High Court or not,” he said.
How incident grabbed national attention
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The incident had happened on the outskirts of the Mota Samadhiyala village of Una tehsil of Gir Somnath district on July 11, 2016 when Vashram and two of his relatives were skinning dead cows – one of them was killed by a lion. At this time, a group of people gathered there as part of an alleged conspiracy and started beating them up after partly stripping them and tying them to a vehicle, accusing them of cow slaughter. They also allegedly took away the victims’ mobile phones.
The Sarvaiyas belong to the Dalit community and their traditional occupation is skinning dead animals.
On getting a message that his sons were being beaten up, Balu Sarvaiya reached the spot and allegedly asked the accused to stop, saying that skinning dead cows is their traditional occupation.
Balu and some of his other relatives were also allegedly attacked by the accused and later the four victims – Vashram, and his relatives Bechar, Ashok and Ramesh – were allegedly taken into wrongful confinement by the accused in their SUV and thrashed them with wooden/plastic sticks, iron pipes etc. at different places while parading them half naked in Una town before handing them over to police.
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(On Monday, as the court pronounced the judgment, Bechar, Ashok and Ramesh were not present.)
The victims were hospitalised after the intervention of one of their relatives and eventually an FIR was registered against the accused on the basis of a complaint filed by Vashram.
The accused also allegedly recorded this act on mobile phones and circulated it on social media.
Circulation of the videos on social media resulted in widespread discontent among Dalits across the country. Violent incidents were reported from many places in Gujarat with damage to public property. Following the incident, a number of Dalits had attempted suicide by consuming poisonous substance in protest and one person reportedly died.
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Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati raised the issue in Parliament. Later, Mayawati also met some of the victims. Politically, the incident became such a controversial one that a range of national political leaders, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, descended on Mota Samadhiyala to meet the Sarvaiyas and express their solidarity with them.
The then Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel had also visited the Sarvaiyas. Jignesh Mevani, a Dalit activist led a protest following the incident and rose as a leader who then went on to win an Assembly seat, Vadgam, as an Independent and later joined the Congress and is an MLA of the party. The investigation of the case was also handed over to CID Crime which eventually filed chargesheet against 41 accused while charging them with criminal conspiracy allegedly to defame the Dalits with the charge of slaughtering cows.
