On November 30, a Bihar court awarded jail term to 20 people for assaulting and parading a Dalit woman naked. The five convicts have been sentenced to a seven-year prison term, and the other 15 have been awarded two-year of a prison term. The incident had taken place more than three months ago in Bhojpur district, Bihar, and at the time of the incident, the convicts had assaulted the woman, suspecting her to be behind the death of a 19-year-old man.
According to the Scroll, Additional District and Sessions Judge Ramesh Chandra Dwivedi has also imposed a fine on the convicts in the case. Five people are imposed with a fine of Rs 10,000 each, and the other 15 are asked to pay a fine of Rs 2,000 each. On Wednesday, the court had convicted all the accused under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act.
After the verdict, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar said that the punishment is “a fresh example of the high benchmark of rule of law set by the NDA government”. He further said that the accused were punished within a hundred days of the incident, as reported by News18.
एनडीए सरकार ने कानून के शासन का जो उच्च मानक गढ़ा है, उसका ताजा उदाहरण है बिहिया बाजार की घटना, जिसमें दलित महिला को निर्वस्त्र घुमाने के मामले में आरोपी सभी २० लोग १०० दिन के भीतर दोषी करार दिये गए।
कानून-व्यवस्था पर छाती पीटने वालों को कानून के लंबे हाथ नहीं दिखते। pic.twitter.com/FwQpSUxNSy— Sushil Kumar Modi (@SushilModi) November 30, 2018
The incident
On August 20, a frightening video had surfaced on the internet where a woman was seen getting beaten up by a frenzied mob. It was also seen that the mob paraded her naked on the streets of Bhojpur district for allegedly committing a murder. The mob had also vandalised the area and had set a number of roadside stalls, houses and motorcycles ablaze.
According to DNA, the incident took place in Bihiya, Ara, Bihar where a woman (victim) from a red-light area was forcefully made to walk naked for several metres by the mob, following the death of a boy, Bimlesh Kumar alias Chhotu Sao in the locality. Reportedly, the mob had attacked the woman as the deceased boy was last seen with her.
Speculations over murder
“The dead body of the boy was found on the railway track. While the local police and RPF were indulging in blame games, some family members blamed the red-light area people for the murder. They incited the locals that the boy was killed by those living in the red-light area, following which they burnt some of the houses and made this woman walk naked,” a police source had told the DNA.
The police had said that the mob dragged out the woman from one of the buildings, ripped off her clothes and paraded her naked while kicking and slapping her. Even after repeated pleas from the woman, the mob did not stop. The woman was later taken to the hospital. At the time of the incident, instead of helping the woman many were filming the act on their cell phones.
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