New Delhi: The killing of Dalits in Mirchpur
in Haryana was on Thursday recounted in a court here as the son of a
70-year-old man, who was burnt alive along with his phyiscally
challenged daughter by dominant Jat community people, recalled
the chain of events in his deposition.
Making his deposition before Additional Sessions Judge
Kamini Lau, 25-year-old Amar Lal, son of slain elderly dalit
Tara Chand, said that on the fateful day of April 21, 2010, a
400-strong mob of Jats had descended on the village, armed
with stones, in rickshaws and carts and attacked the villagers
who were barely out of their beds.
Lal said he saw his co-villagers taking shelters on roof-
tops of their houses and retaliating to the massive stone-
pelting by the crowd. He saw Narnaund police station in-charge
Vinod Kumar Kajal, who too is an accused in the case, asking
the villagers to gather at the chaupal, where, he said, he
would sort out the issue after a meeting with Jats.
"The station house officer also assured us that he would
also bring the Jat people to the chaupal and would try to sort
out the things," Lal said, adding noting came out of the
mneeting as hardly any of the influential jat community
members attended it.
Identifying some Jat community members, including
Rajinder Pali and Ramphal, in the court room as accused, Lal
said as he retured from the chaupal, he found the duo and
some others sprinkling kerosene oil over his house and those
of others.
"My father (Tara Chand) and sister were inside the house
and Rajinder, along with others, had put my house on fire.
Somehow, we managed to take out my father from the burning
house but my physically challenged sister remained stuck
inside the house and was burnt alive there only," Lal said,
recalling his sister`s death.
Lal said that after his sister`s death he rushed his
father to a nearby government hospital where he too succumbed
to his injuries.
Asked what had sparked the violence, Lal said he was not
personally aware of what triggered it but, he said, he had
heard that two days earlier a dog belonging to dalits had
barked at a group of drunk Jat youths passing through the
colony of dalits.
As one of the Jat youths hurled a stone at the dog to
scare it away, a dalit boy objected to it and this resulted in
a brief brawl there and two days later culminated in the
killings of the 70-year-old dalit and his physically
challenged teenaged daughter.
He also deposed that after burning his house and several
other dalit hamlets, accused Vikas, Kulvinder, Rishi and
Karampal and one Vipin, who has not been made accused in the
case, started dancing naked on the street.
Lal was examined as a court witness as he was not
examined by the prosecution. Lal also rejected the defence
counsel`s suggestion that he had given wrong statements
earlier under political pressure.
The court asked the defence and prosecution counsel to
submit the synopsis of their arguments to it by June 27 and
fixed July 4 to begin the arguments on a day-to-day basis.
Out of 103 accused in the case, 97 are lodged in Tihar
Jail after being transferred from Hissar jail on the apex
court`s direction. Five are juveniles and one is out on bail.
The Supreme Court had last year transferred the case
to the special court here designated under the SC/ST
(Prevention of atrocities) Act, 1989 to ensure a free and fair
trial.
PTI
