Mirchpur: Attackers targeted dalit wealth (Times of India)
“A fact-finding team on a visit last Saturday to Haryana’s Mirchpur village, where two dalits were burned to death and 18 houses gutted, reports that the arson wasn’t arbitrary.
“The attackers, allegedly from the Jat community, identified houses of the more well-off among the Balmiki community and set them on fire. A beauty parlour, kirana stores and a barber-shop were totally gutted, an obvious attempt to cower dalit prosperity, however limited.
“‘Any semblance of status symbol was attacked," said journalist Bhasha Singh, houses with motorbikes, televisions, fridges. And shops that dalits ran. ‘The mood in the village was that dalits “need to be taught a lesson.”’ The first thing the mob did, a woman ‘was to break the Sintex water tanks provided by the government, so we had no way of dousing the fire.’ [...]
“Located in Hissar district, Mirchpur has a handful of dalits: about 100 Balmiki families, 350 ‘Jatav’ families and 50 Doms to the 1700-odd Jat families. The team found that growing economic prosperity among a section of the minority dalits seemed to be the root cause this time around. [...]
“Most dalit households have packed off women and younger family members to other villages. Those who remain told chairperson of National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Buta Singh, also present in the village, they wanted to resettle elsewhere ‘far from the Jats.’ They called it ‘a pre-planned attack,’ the fight and barking-dog story only a pretext, what with a mob of 300 to 400 surrounding the locality on the morning of April 21, while the community’s men had been talked into attending a 'compromise meeting' to cool tensions.”
See also:
Fact-finding Team Condemns Arson, Burning of Dalits Houses and the Gruesome Killing at Mirchpur, in Haryana (National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), April 24, 2010):
“The key findings of the fact-finding team are:
“1. It was a pre-planned attack with the connivance of the police. The row over the dog, highlighted by the media and police, was only a pretext.
“2. There was trouble brewing over Dalits managing a local temple festival. The prosperity and independence of a section of the Dalits was begrudged by the Jats.
“3. The village Mirchpur has a history of violence against Dalits as evidenced by the 2007 incident where five Dalits belonging to Dom community were paraded naked and abused. Also, the Mirchpur carnage is a sequel to Salwan (2007, Karnal district); Gohana (2005) and the Jhajjar lynching (2003).
“4. There was, and continues to be, complete collusion between the Jat-dominated district police and the Jats of the village so much that Dalits have completely lost faith in the administration. Most Balmiki families have left the village and those left behind are demanding resettlement in a safer place.”
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