In a shocking incident, a 19-year-old student from the Lambani community was assaulted, stripped and paraded half-naked, holding Dr BR Ambedkar’s photo in Karnataka’s Kalaburagi on 25th January because he refused to attend ‘Ambedkar Puja (worship)’ in his hostel citing personal reasons. He is a science student at N.V. College and stays at the city’s government-run post-metric dormitory behind the High Court building.
Neelakanth Rathod, the victim’s father who moved to Mumbai in search of work, submitted a lawsuit alleging that late on 24th January some of the students had requested the hostel residents to come to the weekly Ambedkar Puja which is observed on Sundays.
However, his son stated that he couldn’t make it to the program because of other obligations. This infuriated the students who along with others from adjacent colleges began to interrogate him. The youngster was reportedly mistreated, attacked, undressed, and paraded through the streets in a semi-nude state. Upon spotting the police officers close to the High Court, the culprits fled and left him behind.
Later, the footage of the horrifying instance became viral on social media. The young man’s father who was in his hometown of Patwad Tanda in Kamalapur taluk at the time of the occurrence was informed of it and promptly hurried to Kalaburagi to file a First Information Report.
A case was launched against 15-20 hostel boys under Section 341 (wrongful restraint), Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), Section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), Section 505(2) (public mischief), Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. All the perpetrators are minors, according to the official complaint.
The instance happened not long after protests against the desecration of Dr B R Ambedkar’s statue on 23rd January in Kalaburagi. Late on the previous night, vandals had violated the statue of Ambedkar at Lumbini Gardens in Kotnoor (D) hamlet on the outskirts of the city with a garland of footwear. The next morning, hundreds of people led by several Dalit organisations rallied in the streets against the action after witnessing the marred statue.
Agitators encircled the car of Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), Kanika Sikriwal at two locations and threw stones at a gas bunk owned by Bharatiya Janata Party city unit president Chandrakanth Patil and demanded the miscreants’ immediate arrest.
In an attempt to defuse the tension, Kanika Sikriwal reached the site of the incident in Kotnoor (D) hamlet and offered a floral tribute to Dr. Ambedkar. The case was reported to the University Police Station and a file was opened. Later, Kanika Sikriwal stated that three teams had been created to apprehend the remaining offenders in addition to the two suspects who had been taken into custody for questioning.
