Bhopal
Four people have been booked for allegedly beating up a Dalit groom following a scuffle that broke out during a wedding procession when it was passing by the houses of accused hailing from the ‘upper caste’ in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior district, police said on May 23.
According to the police, the incident took place at around 11 p.m. on May 20 when the wedding procession of one Naresh Jatav was being taken out in Gwalior’s Rithodan village under Karahiya police station range.
Niranjan Sharma, Additional Superintendent of Police, Gwalior Rural, told The Hindu, that a case under sections 294 and 323 of the IPC and relevant section of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, has been registered. He said that some people from both sides received minor injuries.
The accused were identified as Sanjay Rawat, Dalbir Rawat, Sandeep Rawat, and Anil Rawat.
While the relatives of the groom alleged that the scuffle began when some people threw water at the procession and gathered in front of it with sticks when the procession was passing by their houses, local police said that currency notes being flown by the groom’s relatives had fallen on some women from the accused’s side which resulted in the clash.
Ramnath Awasthi, an elderly relative of the groom, said, “They hurled abuses and caste slurs against the members of the procession. They also fired gun shots in the air and beat up the groom and other relatives with sticks, and broke the horse carriage.”
“This was done because they had a problem with people from the Scheduled Caste wearing good clothes, holding good ceremonies, and the groom going on a horse. This is an old mindset due to which they hold animosity with the people from lower caste,” Mr. Awasthi said while holding a protest at the local SP office on Thursday.
The protest was held by the groom’s relatives as they alleged bias on part of some local police officers. They also demanded that the the sections of illegal firearms be added in the FIR.
Mr. Sharma, however, told The Hindu, “When the baraat was passing by the area, some women of the Rawat community had gathered to watch the procession when some currency notes fell on them. When their family members objected to it, a scuffle broke out between the two sides.”
Mr. Sharma said that the police reached the incident spot and prevented the scuffle from turning into a major clash.
“Members of the procession only moved from the spot at around 3 a.m. after an FIR was filed against the other side,” he said, adding that the probe is currently going on in the matter.
A case under IPC sections 354 and 294 was also filed against some members of the wedding procession on the complaint of the women who alleged misbehaviour by some men from the other side, said Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDOP) Jitendra Nagaich.
