Road ban on Dalit man, four convicted
Vadodara: Four residents of Ajwa Road were convicted on Monday for stopping a dalit man living in the same neighbourhood from using a narrow lane in the locality, hurling caste-based abuses at him and attacking him in August 2018.
The court of special judge (atrocity cases) S C Gandhi ordered the four convicts Gopal Machhi, Bharat alias Revlo Machhi, Jayesh alias Lalo Machhi and Ramesh Machhi to simple imprisonment of two years and fined them of Rs 5,000 each. The court also asked the four convicts to pay compensation of Rs 2,000 each to the complainant Jayesh Parmar.
As per the details of the case, Parmar was stopped by the four convicts on August 12 in 2018 when he was going to buy milk pouches on his scooter. They addressed Parmar using a casteist slur and asked him not to use the lane. Later, they beat Parmar using pipes and Bharat alias Revlo hit Parmar with a sickle on his head.
Parmar had become unconscious due to grievous injuries and was taken to SSG Hospital for treatment. He had given a statement to cops based on which a case of assault, causing hurt, wrongful restraint and under various sections of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was registered at Bapod police station.
All the four attackers were arrested and later tried in a special court for atrocity cases. “There was much evidence against the attackers and eyewitnesses too had deposed against them. The court upheld all submissions made by the prosecution for convicting them,” said additional public prosecutor B S Purohit.
The four convicts’ lawyer had requested the court to be lenient with them considering their economic backgrounds and not punish them. The court, however, turned down the argument by stating that the four attackers had forgotten their moral and social responsibilities by their act. The court also mentioned that the attackers had even forgotten Mahatma Gandhi’s message of compassion and non-violence towards living beings so the defence lawyer’s request cannot be accepted.
Courtesy : TOI
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