Una incident: Gujarat Chief Secretary says accused made video for 'fun'

Ahmedabad: Gujarat's Chief Secretary GR Aloria has said that the accused who had assaulted Dalit men in Una on July 11 in the name of cow protection had video recorded the incident “for fun and uploaded it as a show of bravado”.

The Indian Express reported that Aloria also admitted “there is hooliganism going on in the name of self-proclaimed gau raksha samitis”.

He further stressed that there was a need to be “more vigilant”.

“The accused were so brazen that they shot the video for fun and uploaded it as a show of bravado. They were making an example of it. The car of the accused had a board of the Shiv Sena and the accused had a visiting card that suggested they belonged to the Gau Raksha Samiti, Rajkot,” the chief secretary told the newspaper.

Aloria said a police investigation was underway to ascertain all the facts in the July 11 incident which has triggered protests and violence by Dalits in the state.

“The police are still investigating it. The victims have made a few allegations against the local sarpanch of Mota Samadhiyala. The victims are saying that the sarpanch was objecting to construction activity by the family on land allotted for a common water well, that he called these hooligans to the village under the excuse of gau raksha to beat them up. We are checking this allegation,” he said.

“We have invoked the harshest possible provisions of law,” he added.

The police have registered an FIR in connection with the incident under IPC Sections 307 (attempt to murder); 147 (punishment for rioting); 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon); 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object); 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement); 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person); 395 (punishment for dacoity); 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means); 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace).