A 17-year-old Dalit boy was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha on Saturday, June 6 a week after he had an altercation with the upper caste village youth over praying at a temple.

The incident occurred in the Domkheda village when four youth visited Vikas Jatav’s house at night and shot him dead while he was sleeping.

‘On March 31, some youth from the Chouhan community prevented my son from entering the temple. We don’t know why they did this. We have never been discriminated like this before. They later beat up my son and used casteist slurs but he was saved by some locals,’ India Today quoted the victim’s father Om Prakash Jatav as saying.Despite being informed about the fight between Jatav and the upper caste youth, the police did not take any action.’On Saturday night, four people including Horam Chauhan and Lala Chouhan came to my house, shot my son as he was sleeping, threatened us and ran away,’ Om Prakash said.As the news of the incident led to panic amongst the villagers the police were called.

‘Based on the complaint by the victim’s family, we have booked a case against four youth. We will make arrests based on eyewitness accounts. The deceased’s body has been sent for postmortem and the investigation is on,’ said Amroha SP Vipin Tada.

A case has been registered against the accused under charges of murder and violation of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act.

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