In Photos: Students, Activists, Victims' Families Protest Sewer Deaths
New Delhi: Around 1,000 people, including students and activists, gathered at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday to protest the deaths of manual scavengers in sewers in different parts of the country. The protest was organised by the National Safai Karamchari Andolan.
In the last two weeks, as many as six manual scavengers have lost their lives in the National Capital Region alone – five in one incident and one in another. Another five manual scavengers’ deaths were reported from Chhattisgarh.
“There can’t be more orphans because of this. There can’t be more children who lose their parents, more wives who lose their husbands, more sisters who lose their brothers. It has to stop,” Bezwada Wilson, convenor of the Safai Karamchari Andolan, said at protest. “Nowadays the government says so much about ‘Swachh Bharat’ – but it doesn’t have a word to say about manual scavengers. We are not asking them for money! We are asking for basic human rights.”
Here are a few images from the protest.
#Grit is an initiative of The Wire dedicated to the coverage of manual scavenging and sanitation and their linkages with caste, gender, policy and apathy. The Manual Scavenging Project is the first in a series of deep dive editorial projects.
This article went live on September twenty-fifth, two thousand eighteen, at thirty minutes past six in the evening.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
