A student of 3rd year, studying law at Ghaziabad-based Inmantec Institute committed suicide reportedly after being harassed over his Dalit identity by his upper-caste classmates, including a girl and three boys.
The Incident
Police said that on July 11, 20-year-old Vipin Verma hanged himself at his home in Ghaziabad’s Shastri Nagar area. His father, Police Constable Virendra Kumar, lodged the FIR at the Kavi Nagar police station late on the night of July 12.
Police said that Vipin was being harassed over his Dalit identity by Neha Chaudhary and her friends Anu, Ankur and Arun since June 14. When Vipin shared the matter with his mother Bhagwati Devi, she consoled him and advised him to focus on his studies.
Bhagwati Devi shared her son’s plight with her husband, who contacted the group to urge them to resolve the issue. The group assured Virendra Kuma that they would not harass his son again. The same evening, Vipin hanged himself.
“I am a Dalit and the accused are influential persons of higher caste, so my complaint was delayed and the accused are still at large,” News18 quoted Virendra Kumar as saying in his complaint.
However, Superintendent of Police – City Shlok Kumar said: “We have registered the complaint, an investigation is underway. We will arrest the accused soon.”
The Logical Indian Take
This incident comes a month after we lost 23-year-old doctor Payal Tadvi belonging to the Bhil Adivasi community in Maharashtra. Tadvi, who worked at BYL Nair Hospital in Mumbai, hanged herself on May 22 after allegedly facing casteist slurs from senior doctors at the hospital.
On July 11, 2016, three years ago a group of people assaulted seven members of a Dalit family on the pretext of cow protection in Una in Gujarat. The video of the incident was circulated on social media, enraging people and resulting in statewide protests in the following months.
It has been three years and four months to this incident, and nothing has changed. Violence, atrocities, abuse and harassment against Dalits and people belonging to lower castes is an ugly reality in India.
It is extremely unfortunate that such an evil system has existed unchallenged for decades now. People of lower castes who have dared to revolt have often been crushed by a society which has lived on with the deeply ingrained belief that caste determines a person’s social status.
Also Read: Mumbai: Doctors Accused Of Harassing Junior Doctor & Driving Her To Commit Suicide, Arrested
