Girl killed for eloping with Dalit

Dalits Media Watch

News Updates 28.10.11

LDF walkout over Dalit youth's death - The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/article2573990.ece

Protests against negligence - IBN Live

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/protests-against-negligence/196970-60-115.html

Girl killed for eloping with Dalit - Indian Express

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/girl-killed-for-eloping-with-dalit/865729/

The Hindu

LDF walkout over Dalit youth's death

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/article2573990.ece

Special Correspondent

Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) members walked out of the Assembly on Thursday to protest against a Dalit youth's death by hanging at Vithura near here after being held by the police on Tuesday.

The Opposition alleged that the police had beaten up Sinu (26) after he was picked up from near his house.

Seeking leave of the Assembly for an adjournment motion on the issue, Koliyakode N. Krishnan Nair (CPI-M) said the police charge that the youth was in a drunken state when he was held was not true and that the police had beaten him up without any serious provocation. He demanded an ex gratia of at least Rs.10 lakh for Sinu's family.

Rebutting the Opposition charge, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said the youth and the person held along with him were found to be in an inebriated state when subjected to medical examination.

The government, he said, would not allow the police to beat up anyone in lock-up. The circumstances that led to the youth's death were being investigated by a Deputy Superintendent of Police under the supervision of the Superintendent of Police (Rural), he said.

The youth, he said, had tried to commit suicide a year ago over a quarrel with his mother. He was also one of the accused in a case relating to a gang attack on a woman and had obtained bail only on October 1. Regardless of all these, the government would deal firmly with any person found to be responsible for the youth's death, he said.

Not an isolated incident

Communist Party of India (Marxist) Legislature Party deputy leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who led the Opposition walkout, said that Sinu's death was not an isolated incident. Several such incidents had been reported in the recent past and the Chief Minister's statement about the youth amounted to giving a green signal to the police to beat up drunkards to death.

Chairman of the SC/ST Parliamentary Forum Kodikkunnil Suresh, MP, has demanded a high-level inquiry into the death of a Dalit youth who allegedly committed suicide after being released from custody from Vithura police station.

IBN Live

Protests against negligence

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/protests-against-negligence/196970-60-115.html

Express News Service , The New Indian Express

GULBARGA: The Communist Party of India decided to lay siege Bilwar gram panchayat of Jewargi taluk on Friday to protest against the 'negligence' towards Dalits of Jamakhandi village, district unit secretary of CPI Shoukat Ali Alur said.

He told Express here on Thursday that, the party's office-bearers, along with him, visited Jamakhandi on Wednesday and found that over 40 people were suffering from different water-borne diseases like GE Jaundice.

As per the report he received on Thursday another 15 person fell sick of GE, Alur said. The water in the Dalit locality is contaminated and there are no other sources of drinking water for them in the village, he alleged.

Indian Express

Girl killed for eloping with Dalit

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/girl-killed-for-eloping-with-dalit/865729/

Thu Oct 27 2011, 00:50 hrs Lucknow:

In yet another incident of honour killing, a man slit the throat of his teenage daughter after she had eloped with a Dalit youth. The incident took place under Charthawal police station area of Muzaffarnagar district on Wednesday.

Abdul Sattar has surrendered and confessed to his crime to the police after the girl's body was found.

Muzaffarnagar SSP Praveen Kumar said some people informed the police about the body of a girl lying at a secluded place behind an unused room at a municipal building.

"Someone identified the body as that of Gulshana (19) and said that her family resides about 500 metres from the spot," Kumar said.

During questioning, Sattar admitted that he had killed Gulshana when she was asleep at night and dumped the body at that spot. He also said that he had killed his daughter because she had an affair with a Dalit youth.

He had warned his daughter to stay away from the youth, but they eloped on October 23.

He traced the couple to a hotel near Roorkee, brought her home on Tuesday and tried to convince her not to marry the youth, but Gulshana did not agree, police said.

-- 
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.