Patiala: The Malerkotla police booked a man on Thursday after a video of him assaulting a 13-year-old Dalit boy landed on social media. The child was hit because one of his flip flops had slipped into the man’s field by mistake.
The incident was reported from Moranwali village in Ahmedgarh division of Malerkotla district a few days ago but the case was registered only after the video surfaced. Booked under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribes Act, and the Juvenile Justice Act, accused Gurbir Singh belongs to Kakrala village near Nabha area in Patiala district, but has leased a 500-bigah farmland in Malerkotla.
The assaulted boy lives at Moranwali with his maternal grandmother, Raj Kaur, 55, who told police that: “He was playing with his friends in a government school on January 27 when a friend tossed one of his slippers into Gurbir’s field. When he entered the field to fetch it, Gurbir broke his arm and when I pleaded with him to stop, he hit me with a stick.”
Raj Kaur’s daughter-in-law Mandeep Kaur said: “The fear of man’s influence prevented us from taking the boy to a doctor on the day of the assault. We tried to treat him at home until the video brought villagers to our support and they took the boy to Malerkotla hospital, from where he was referred to Ahmedgarh, from where we brought him back and took him to Sangrur.”
Malerkotla SSP Avneet Kaur Sidhu said: “The main accused was arrested in a raid based on the video evidence and further inputs. A man accused of instigating him is also being booked.”
Courtesy : TOI
Note: This news piece was originally published in timesofindia.in and used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Rights
