A Hindu cobbler, Gole Bharti, was mercilessly beaten to death by a road contractor Noor Alam for mistakenly taking his cycle over a newly constructed concrete road recently. The incident took place at Chaideeh village of Balrampur district in Uttar Pradesh. As per the victim’s family, the accused has not been arrested by the police so far.

An FIR has been registered at the Pachperwa police station on 26 January 2023. The victim hailed from Harkhari village of the district, and he was living in a joint family with his brother Sohan Bharti. Gole Bharti was a cobbler by profession and he belong to the Mochi jati, an SC community. He is survived by six children – two sons and four daughters.

This incident happened on 24 January, when Sohan was returning home from Siswa village with his brother Gole. Soon they reached the Chaideeh village, where road construction was going on and Gole drove his cycle over the newly constructed patch unknowingly.

All of a sudden, the contractor Noor Alam came shouting and started passing casteist abuses on them and attacked Gole with hockey sticks. Gole suffered severe head injuries and Sohan took him to the nearest clinic, which referred him to the Sahara nursing home, Balrampur.

Gole’s condition was critical and he succumbed to the injuries and was declared dead at 3 AM. Sohan Bharti filed a complaint and police did book Noor Alam under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (insulting intentionally) with sections of the Prevention of atrocities against Act commonly referred to as the SC-ST Act.

Gole’s family has accused the police of taking no action thus far. Police haven’t arrested Noor Alam and even the post-mortem report reveals contrary facts, that ensure no sections of a murder could be invoked against him. News outlet Rashtra Jyoti has quoted Investigating Officer Kunwar Prabhat Singh as saying on 28 January that no arrests had been made in the case so far as the post-mortem report reveals something else. Singh said the report claims the cause of death as ‘lung failure’.