Jaipur: Just after completing his shift as a sanitation worker in Rajasthan’s Kotputli, when 38-year-old Kaluram Valmiki received a phone call on the evening of May 14, he was left numb by the words he heard.
A cousin told Valmiki that his younger brother Rameshwar was abducted and brutally assaulted by a group of men, who dumped his lifeless body in front of their home in Baloda village of Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district.
Rameshwar, a Dalit man in his early twenties belonging to the Valmiki community, earned his livelihood by working in a local cow shelter, says his brother Kaluram.
“After hearing the news of his death, I rushed to Jhunjhunu, which is more than 130 kms from Kotputli. We found out that Rameshwar was mercilessly beaten by people associated with the liquor business. Rameshwar was the youngest son in our family and was the only one who stayed and looked after our elderly mother, since I and another brother stay in different districts for work,” says Kaluram, brother of the deceased.
A video of the assault on Rameshwar has gone viral on social media, wherein a group of men can be seen assaulting him with sticks, while Rameshwar is tied and hung upside down from a rod. The incident has resulted in massive criticism for the Bhajan Lal Sharma-led BJP government in Rajasthan, with the opposition Congress slamming the law and order situation in the state.
The Rajasthan police have arrested five people and detained a minor for allegedly perpetrating the incident, said officials.
According to the first information report (FIR) lodged in the incident at the Surajgarh police station on May 15, Rameshwar, along with another man Jethuram Nayak were abducted by the accused persons who came in motorcycles. The two men were taken to a haveli in the village where liquor is kept by those engaged in the liquor business, before being assaulted by the accused, says the FIR.
“These people beat up Rameshwar badly and killed him…These people beat my brother to death and dumped him at our house around 6.30-7.00 pm,” says the FIR lodged on the basis of the complaint of Kaluram.
The FIR adds that when Rameshwar’s body was dumped, his elderly mother was at home and other neighbours too saw the incident.
The FIR has been lodged under Sections including 302 (murder), 143 (unlawful assembly), 341 (wrongful restraint), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 362 (abduction), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence or giving false information to screen offender) of the IPC along with relevant sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The FIR lists Cintiyo, Parveen Kumar, Subash Bawariya, Sukho, Parveen, Dipender and others as the accused in the case.
“We have apprehended a total of six people in this incident of which one person is a minor. Preliminary investigation suggests that on May 14, two of the accused including a minor and Chintu Meghwal, took the deceased Rameshwar Valmiki and his acquaintance Jethuram to a nearby godown on their bikes and beat them up. After a while, Rameshwar became unconscious. The accused took him to a hospital where he was declared dead. Thereafter, his body was dumped at his home by the accused,” Jhunjhunu SP Rajarshi Raj Varma told reporters.
The police said that some of the arrested accused have a prior criminal record, with four cases being registered against accused Praveen Kumar and nine cases against Deependra Rajput who is also a history-sheeter.
“In preliminary interrogation, we have come to know that the deceased was drinking country liquor and the accused, who are engaged as liquor salesmen of a local theka (shop), didn’t like the fact that he was not purchasing liquor from the shop and drinking country liquor. They abducted him over that. Prima facie it appears that the motive was not to murder him and wanted to threaten and intimidate him. But (Rameshwar) died during the assault,” said SP Verma.
Rameshwar’s brother Kaluram told The Wire that his brother didn’t have any prior enmity with the accused and would spend his days working at a local cow shelter.
“We are a poor family and we fear that the accused may use their clout and evade the law. Our family is devastated. Rameshwar was the only support for our elderly mother. We want justice and exemplary punishment for the accused,” said Kaluram.
