Dalit Youth Set Ablaze in MP's Sagar Dist: Panel Asks Cops to Submit Report, Shift Victim to Delhi Hospital

Bhopal: The National Commission for Scheduled Castes on Tuesday directed the Sagar district police in Madhya Pradesh to submit a report within a week in connection with the setting ablaze of a Dalit youth on January 14.

Dhanprasad Ahirwar (24) was doused with kerosene in Dharmshri Colony, some 170km from here, over a dispute allegedly by a group of 15-20 men, five of whom were arrested later.

"I have directed the Sagar Superintendent of Police to submit action taken report within a week," National Commission for Scheduled Castes Vice Chairman L Murugan said after meeting Ahirwar who is undergoing treatment for 60-65% burns at Hamidia Hospital here.

Amid reports of the victim not getting proper treatment at the local hospital, Murugan said the authorities here have been told to shift Ahirwar to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi.

The NCSC vice chairman said Ahirwar will get Rs 4 lakh as assistance under the SC/ST Act and demanded that he be given additional relief from the chief minister's fund.

Murugan said Ahirwar's kin had told him the accused, all of whom belong to a particular community, had assaulted him a week before this incident but police, at the time, had failed to take action.

He said only five persons have been held while Ahirwar's kin have claimed a mob of 15-20 people had attacked their house on the fateful day and five of them had set him ablaze.

The family members were able to identify only five of the attackers. Murugan told reporters he has instructed the Sagar SP to include all the unidentified men in the FIR lodged in the case and also book the policemen who did not showed for alleged slackness in registering the victim’s complaint under Section 4 of the ST/SC (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Meanwhile, the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit has accused the Kamal Nath-led Congress government of shielding the culprits. Senior BJP leader and former minister Lal Singh Arya said, “We would rest till the victim is given justice.”

Hitting out at the ruling camp for its alleged apathy, Arya said no senior Congress leader has visited the Dalit youth. “Despite severe burn injuries, the authorities kept him in a non-AC room in the Bhopal hospital, forget sending him to Safdarjung in Delhi,” he said, while demanding Rs 10 lakh compensation from the state government for Ahirwar.

(With inputs from PTI)