On March 13, Sachin Tiwari (20) son of Shivshankar Tiwari from Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh was on his way for tuition when local police sub-inspector (SI) Ram Kishor Rawat stopped him. The SI beat him up allegedly as soon as he came to know from Sachin’s surname that he is a Brahmin.
Sachin was riding his scooter and was accompanied by two friends, Shivam Singh and Saurabh Yadav. The SI was checking vehicles in the Daryapur locality. Police had every reason to stop Sachin since riding triples is punishable with a fine, but the practice is common among students. He had no reason to beat Sachin or for that matter anyone, who had committed such a minor offense, especially young students on their way to classes.
Sachin said that he was stopped by the SI who asked him to show his license and vehicle registration details. The victim alleged that his surname enraged the officer and that the SI used casteist slurs and beat him with a stick not once, but several times. Sachin is a B.Com student who attends Kamla Nehru Institute of Physical and Social Sciences and is a resident of Shastri Nagar in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
“He asked my full name and started beating me mercilessly,” said Sachin. Following the severe thrashing, the victim had to get medical help and his left arm is visibly swollen.
Sachin is an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) volunteer and the incident that occurred around 4 pm did not go down well with fellow students and BJP workers in the area. By dusk, they began protesting against the police atrocity and gheraoed the police station. They wanted strict action against the aggressive and casteist officer, who is reportedly from an SC community (aka ‘Dalit’).
Senior officers had to step in following which an FIR was registered against the erring officer for voluntarily causing hurt and for criminal intimidation. The issue was deemed solved but interestingly, the next day, the police officer reportedly registered a counter-complaint. He registered an FIR against Sachin accusing him of several violations. The new complaint says that Sachin ‘voluntarily obstructed’ the public servant (the SI himself) and ‘assaulted’ him. Not surprisingly, the SI has also slapped various sections of the SC-ST Act.
Frequent misuse of the stringent SC/ST Act has led to calls for its reform. In fact, in 2018 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court had banned automatic arrests and permitted anticipatory bail in such cases, but strong protests against this ‘dilution’ across the country led the government to pass an amendment to bring the law back to its original form. In 2019, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court set aside the 2018 verdict and in 2020, the SC upheld the constitutional validity of the amendment introduced by the government.
Incidentally, there are reports that this is not the first time that this particular UP police inspector has been involved in controversies and atrocities.
A few days back, UP Police SI Ajay Yadav was suspended for acting in a partisan manner after SP supporters killed a youth Satish Chauhan (reportedly from an SC community) for celebrating BJP’s win in the assembly elections.
Hindus and Dharmics fighting amongst themselves in the name of caste, regionalism or creed will only help the Abrahamic fundamentalists, communists and left-liberals.
