pc: Jansatta

The Madurai rural district police have booked six persons under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) Prevention of Atrocities (POA) Act on charges of subjecting a 17-year-old Dalit boy to caste-based abuse, physically assaulting him and forcing him to fall at their feet due to past enmity.

The victim also accused the culprits of urinating on her in front of a six-year-old child. The incident took place on January 16 and following a complaint lodged by the victim, a resident of Sangampatti village, the Usilampatti Town police on Saturday registered a case against the six accused under Sections 296(B), 351(2) BNS and various provisions of the SC/ST POA Act, including criminal intimidation, obscenity and intentional insult to a person belonging to the SC or ST community.

Neelam Cultural Centre, an NGO dedicated to protecting Dalit rights, strongly condemned the incident and shared the information on the social media platform X.

The organisation accused the police of delaying filing the case and said the accused had not been arrested until Sunday. On Saturday, the 17-year-old victim, accompanied by VCK members and a lawyer, went to the Usilampatti Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP)'s office. The boy also narrated the incident in a video.

The victim said that during a festival in his village last month, some people harassed and threatened him because of his caste, and also made derogatory comments about his family. Out of fear, he was staying in Kerala. Recently, he returned home for Pongal. Despite trying to keep quiet, the accused forcibly took him to a secluded spot in the village.

"They thrashed me, hurled casteist slurs at me and forced me to fall at their feet and apologise even though I had done nothing wrong. They also urinated on me in front of a six-year-old boy. They threatened to kill me. I sustained serious injuries in the attack and had to be hospitalised," the victim said.

Madurai district Superintendent of Police (SP) BK Arvind on Sunday said that the investigation into the case was underway and the police had acted swiftly. However, the police denied the allegations of urinating on the boy, insisting that such claims were false and being circulated.