CASTE ATROCITY IN LATHOR, BOLANGIR DISTRICT OF ODISHA. MORE THAN 50 HOUSES ARE BURNT BY UPPER castes on 22/1/12.

CASTE ATROCITY IN LATHOR, BOLANGIR DISTRICT OF ODISHA. 

MORE THAN 50 HOUSES ARE BURNT BY UPPER castes on 22/1/12.

A small boy's incident took the shape of caste violence in Lathor, Balangir district of Odisha. The incident started at 3.00pm at lathor ,a 9^th class dalit boy Ganesh Suna  used to wear 2shirts every day but today he wear only a shirt, but he went to purchase  a shirt and wear it over that shirt, but shopkeepers  Bharat  Meher and his brother  Daya Meher ,  called him back and  accused  him as a thief and beat him . When the boy was returning to home helplessly at that time he met to an old man Gouranga Suna and told about the incident and by responding to the shopkeeper s the old man told that why do you beat him? If he has stolen the shirt we can pay the money for that but you should not had to beaten him, but, the shopkeepers did not listen him and beat to the old man (Gouranga Suna) too by their foot wears. Then the old man reported to his family members, and then 4/5 youth from Dalit community went to the shop and fought with them. This is the fact matter occurred at the beginning of the incident and in this way feeling of hatred created between dalit (Asavarna) and upper caste (Savarna), and upper caste take the advantage of being majority heavy over the dalit minority.

 By taking the advantage of the situation, the upper castes reaction to this incident and attacked by their weapons, stick, and muscles power and fought against Dalits. Because Dalit were minority in number so they could not face the violent force of upper castes mob. So Dalit tried to save them from this brutal violence and run way from their home. Some dalit men went to the forest, some went to the nearest villages and the women saved themselves in other untouchable Ghasia Vasti (Scavenger) and saved their life. In this way the upper castes created fear among dalit.

 Even the violent upper castes people looted gold ornaments and expensive materials. They burnt all the certificates of the students and other kind of valuables documents. At the same time they abused to all dalit women with derogatory language. Even the upper caste trader people like Marwadi Agrawal distributed liquor and petrol freely to ruin the dalit houses. Meanwhile some dalit tried to register an affair in the Lathor police station but police refuse to register the case and unable to handle the catastrophic situation. The Incident became very serious goes up to a level where no one able stops the upper castes; even they beat to a local news reporter of Kanak TV and threatened to The Dharitri reporter Bhubaneswar Barik .  By marching they blocked all the road communication facilities and burnt tyre on the road and dug the road by which communication can be stopped towards Lathor.

The burning goes up to more than 6^th hour according to OTV news channel but fact is that it's more than 6 hour from the dalit people report and eyes witness. The Upper castes mob fearlessly attacked to fire brigade and brunt their vehicle so that the fire could not stop and they can burn all the houses.  Since, nobody has courage to off the burning so everything changed in to ashes. From the current report there are no single commodities and food grains which are left out for their uses until the case is registered and fire brigade stop the fire. Police reached there at mid night and tried to protect the victimized dalit people.

On the 23 January, in the morning police high authority DIG reached to the spot with another battalion and ordered the fire brigade commandos to stop the fire.  When fire was stopped at that time there was nothing which can be collected for their use. Then after the government following the case, in the late morning at 10 or 11 am the administrative officers Tahasildar and BDO reached to investigate the incident. The officers took the homeless dalit in to a Govt School and provided some kind of relief and distributed some Biscuits, Shawls and Chuda. The distributed things are useless which cannot be eaten which are low in quality. The rehabilitation programme taken by government is insufficient.   And all homeless dalit accommodate in a Govt school of the particular village.  The victimized and homeless dalit people need proper rehabilitation, adequate help and emotional support.

Dalit are lost their houses, property, wealth, clothes bikes, books and they are hopeless and homeless. More than 4 crores wealth has been lost. Whole Dalit Vasti is being burnt, where more than 50 fifty families were living, there is nothing to collect from the home, and they lost everything.  The children women and men are displaced from the home. The rehabilitation programme which is taken by the government is insufficient; all the people are rehabilitated in a government school. Imagine the situation is very pathetic, people are crying, such a brutal attacked by the caste Hindu nobody can think on the issue even Police and administration are unable to give justice.

From TV report the Odisha Chief Minister declared to give 1 lakhs to each victimized family as compensation.   

These are the victimized dalit families:

SL NO	Name of the Victims	Male No	Female No	Boy Age under 14	Girl Age under 14
1	Gouranga Suna	2	3	1	1
2	Byasa Suna	1	2	2
3	Nilanchala Suna	3	2	-
4	Rajhansa Suna	2	1	1
5	Simanchal Suna	1	2	4	-
6	Trinatha Tandi	4	4	-	-
7	Dolamani Tandi	1	1	-	1
8	Sikun Bag	1	2	3
9	Mahendra Suna	6	3	1	-
10	Lakhsman Suna	3	3	-	-
11	Mukhiaru Suna	1	2	1	-
12	Karunakar Suna	1	2	2	-
13	Bhadra Suna	2	2	-	-
14	Sankritan Suna	2	3	-	-
15	Akrura Suna	1	2		1
16	Madan Suna	1	1	1	-
17	Pradeep Suna	3	3	-	-
18	Dalaganjan Suna	1	2	3	-
19	Tunu Suna	1	2	3	-
20	Kadam Sagadia	1	1	4	-
21	Kangres Sagadia	2	2	2	-
22	Shankar Sagdia	3	5	-	-
23	Rameshwar Tandi	2	2	-	-
24	Kalindri Suna	1	2	-	2
25	Tine Suna	2	1	-	-
26	Dhanu Suna	3	2	1	1
27	Biranchi Suna	3	2	2	-
28	Jaganath Tandi	1	1	1	-
29	Pati Sagadia	2	2	2	4
30	Dinesh Suna	2	1	-	-
31	Kanhu Suna	3	1	1	-
32	Pancha Suna	1	2	1	1
33	Kialash Suna	1	1	2	-
34	Gulapi Suna	-	2	1	2
35	Firoj Suna	1	1	2	-
	TOTAL	65	70	41	13

 

 This is a fact data we collected by the reasonable resources. There are more victimized people whose name is to be enlisted. 

These are the picture from the incident which speaks about the caste violence and burnt houses.

1-      The burnt materials are thrown out from the home-

 

 

These are the burnt and broken buildings. 

 

 

 Documents, utensils and houses are destroyed. More than 4 crores of property have been lost.

 

The helpless women and innocent children are in the Govt School (relief camp).

These are the up dated news many more facts and details are yet to come……

jadumanilion@gmail.com, dhratnakumar@gmail.com , 0827553438, 08806436110