A man belonging to a scheduled caste was beaten to death by a man named Noor Alam for mistakenly rolling his cycle over a newly constructed concrete road last week.
The incident took place at Chaideeh village of Balarampur district in Uttar Pradesh. The accused has not been arrested by the police so far.
The FIR
A First Information Report (number—44/2023) was registered at the Pachperwa police station on 26 January 2023.
The victim’s brother Sohan Bharti told the police that he lives in Harkhari village of the district with his brother and family.
On 24 January around 5 in the evening, Bharti was returning home from Siswa village with his brother Gole.
Gole was walking ahead of Bharti with his cycle. Soon they reached the Chaideeh village. Construction of the road was going on and Gole unknowingly drove his cycle over a newly constructed patch.
It was then the contractor Noor Alam came shouting. He passed casteist comments on them and attacked Gole with hockey sticks. He sustained severe head injuries.
Bharti took Gole to doctor Istaq’s clinic at Judikuiya who referred him to Balrampur. Gole was first taken to a private clinic. Then he was taken to Sahara nursing home where his condition was critical till this report was registered at the police station.
Goles died on the intervening night of 26 and 27 January. Bharti says he died around 3 am.
After his complaint, Alam was booked under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (insulting intentionally) with sections of the Prevention of atrocities against Act commonly referred to as the SC-ST Act.
The Police
Rashtra Jyoti called up the Investigating Officer, Kunwar Prabhat Singh, who is Circle Officer, Tulsipur, Balrampur, on 28 January.
Singh said that no arrests had been made in the case so far as the post-mortem report reveals something else.
When asked what the report says, he said the report claims the cause of death as ‘lung failure’ and they will act further only after the doctor confirms it.
With this information, they have not arrested Alam and no sections for murder have been invoked against him.
The Victim
This correspondent called Bharti on 27 December. In a telephonic interview, he told the following things to Rashtra Jyoti:
They belong to the ‘Mochi’ caste and he is a cobbler by profession. His brother Gole accompanied him in his work.
Gole is survived by six children – two sons and four daughters whereas Bharti has four children – two sons and daughters each.
Three of their sons live in Mumbai and work as labourers. They often send Rs 1000 or Rs 2000 to support them financially.
They have a small patch of land (“ek-do beegha”) which helps them with the grains for the year. Sometimes they have to buy the grains as fields are not fertile and they do not have enough money to buy fertilizers.
On the fateful night when his brother was attacked by Alam, they were returning home after buying chicken. They have no links or past rivalry with Alam.
He attacked Gole just because the road sustained tyre marks as the cement was not set properly.
Bharti says that the Siswa village mostly resides Muslim families and hence Alam dared to attack his brother.
He says that Gole died of the attacks and has no previous records of lung disease.
He said he had to take him to a ‘Bengali doctor’ before he was referred to Balrampur. He spent all his savings to cure his brother but the latter succumbed to his injuries.
Gole was attacked brutally from the back hence his head was damaged severely, added Bharti.
He says the whole family is in shock.
They want justice for Gole and his children who lost their father to an ugly dispute like this.
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