Muslim Schoolboys Tied to Pole, Beaten by Maratha Men, Latur Police File FIR Against Victims First

Mangaluru: A few days ago, a video of three boys – all between 13 and 15 – tied to a pole and brutally beaten by a group of men went viral on social media. This video was shot on July 10 in Kharola village, Renapur Taluka in Maharashtra's Latur district, on the phone of one of the attackers. The attackers were all Maratha men from the same village and the victims were school- going Muslim boys.

Despite how clear cut the case appeared in the video and despite police having to intervene before the attackers finally released the boys, the officials filed a case against the victims instead. Only after public pressure mounted was an FIR registered against the Maratha men, hours later.

The father of one of the boys, who is also a witness in the case, told The Wire that he rushed to the scene along with the parents of the other two children as soon as he learned his son and his friends were tied up and being beaten.

"We tried hard to stop the men, but they turned on us and started abusing us. We were so scared they would kill our children, and we couldn't do anything. After pleading with them, we rushed to the police station, seven kilometres away. The police arrived at the spot immediately," he said.

The father's name has been withheld, as the children are all minors.

The attackers alleged that the boys stole electric wires from their farms.

Police confirmed to The Wire that they were informed of the ongoing violence and had to rush to the scene, where officers physically pulled the boys out of the mob. But despite arriving at the scene and witnessing the crime firsthand, police failed to file an FIR against the men immediately.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Rajendra Mayane said the delay occurred because officers were "trying to verify facts”. This, even when the police had witnessed the violence unleashed on the young boys. 

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The incident took place around noon. The children's parents told The Wire that they rushed the boys to the hospital afterward. "They were beaten with a belt, wires, and pipes. Their bodies were completely bruised," one parent said.

Even as the parents tended to their children in the hospital, one of the accused shared a video of the beating among his friends. Within hours, the video was widely shared on social media. 

Around 10 pm, one of the alleged prime accused, Sachin Rautrao, filed an FIR against the three boys. Mayane confirmed that Rautrao had come to the police station to register the complaint.

Only after Rautrao's complaint was recorded did police take a complaint from one of the victims' parents. Rautrao’s complain doesn’t mention that he, along with others had tied up the boys and beaten them. 

Mayane maintains that the timing of the FIR is inconsequential, but the delay in registering it may have helped Rautrao evade arrest.

Rautrao, along with another accused man, Nitin Shinde, went missing as soon as the FIR was registered against them. From the time of the crime and registration of the FIR against the Maratha men, over 10 hours had passed. 

Initially, police named only two people in the FIR filed by one victim's father. Six more names, Santosh Rautrao, Bably Kale, Datta Jadhav, Balu Suryavanshi, Ganesh Bhopi, and Dashrath Bhopi, were added later. While Rautrao and Shinde remain at large, the other six were produced before a magistrate and released on bail after two days. 

Kharola village has a mixed population of more than 1,500 households, including over 300 Muslim households and more than 500 belonging to the Maratha community. The rest of the houses belong to families from Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Scheduled Castes.

Most Muslims in the village, largely from OBC communities, are landless and dependent on the higher-caste Marathas for their livelihoods. They mostly work as labourers at the farms of the Marathas in the village.

Although Mayane claimed the attack had no communal dimension, the boys' parents say the accused hurled casteist and communal slurs at them during the assault.

One parent also alleged that police warned them against raising their Muslim identity in connection with the case. DSP Mayane, speaking to The Wire, repeatedly maintained that “this was not a case of communal violence”.

“The sequence of FIR is irrelevant here. Although we received a theft complaint against the boys, we didn’t initiate any action against them," Mayane said. 

But rights activist Juned Atar, convener of the Maharashtra Activist Forum, questioned whether the accused would have touched the boys had they belonged to the same community.

"The fact that these are Muslim boys, and their parents won't be able to fight back, emboldened the accused men," said Atar, who has been helping the victims' parents pursue the case legally, alongside other local activists.

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