Last week, a video went viral from Sidhi district in Madhya Pradesh showing a man urinating in the face of another. The Madhya Pradesh government took stringent action against the accused and not only arrested him under the strict NSA law, but also demolished his property under the Anti-Mafia Act.
A similar incident was recently reported in Medinapore in West Bengal. According to reports, workers of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party abducted a Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) worker and urinated on his face when he asked for water.
As reported by the PTI news agency, the BJP worker, who was also a polling agent for the party, was allegedly abducted by TMC workers on July 13. The goons took him to a local party office in Garbeta, where he was tortured and humiliated. The accused men urinated on the victim’s face when he asked for water.
As per the details shared by state BJP IT head Amit Malviya, the victim man has been identified as Barun Ruidas.
Malviya sharing a video and complaint letter on Twitter wrote, “BJP worker Barun Ruidas of Khunberia village (Booth # 75) in Garbeta Assembly, a Dalit, was the polling agent, in the recently concluded Panchayat polls. After the election, Mamata Banerjee’s goons picked him up, took him to the TMC office, beat him mercilessly and later urinate on his face. Mamata Banerjee’s silence on this inhuman act and her administration’s complicity in hushing up the matter is appalling. This is not just political violence, which in itself is abhorrent, but also caste atrocity.”
BJP worker Barun Ruidas of Khunberia village (Booth # 75) in Garbeta Assembly, a Dalit, was the polling agent, in the recently concluded Panchayat polls. After the election, Mamata Banerjee’s goons picked him up, took him to the TMC office, beat him mercilessly and later urinate… pic.twitter.com/uxJP6KxfHJ
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) July 17, 2023
A BJP delegation led by the party’s vice-president Samit Das, went to the hospital this morning to meet the victim who narrated his ordeal.
“Trinamool Congress hooligans demanded money from our party workers to celebrate their victory. Being very poor, he refused to pay up which infuriated them. Then he was abducted and taken to a local party office. First, he was beaten up severely. When he asked for water, the inebriated assailants urinated on his face. We have already filed a police complaint in the matter. We will be going for a bigger movement on this issue,” Das told the media at the hospital.
However, the TMC MLA and the party district coordinator in West Midnapore Ajit Maiti refuted the allegations saying, “The elections in the Garbeta area were absolutely peaceful. We organised victory processions in a limited and humble way to avoid any kind of tension. BJP is cooking up stories now to create tension in the area,” Maiti said.
The case from Madhya Pradesh was largely associated with caste-based atrocities, as the accused belonged to the Brahmin community while the victim was a Dalit.
The accused, identified as Pravesh Shukla, urinated on the face of a tribal man, Dashmat Rawat. The video of the act went viral on social media on July 4, and within two days, police arrested the accused, detained him under NSA, and had his house bulldozed. The state’s chief minister met with the victim and apologised for the barbaric act.
A similar incident was reported by Organiser from Uttar Pradesh, where an accused from the Muslim community raped a Dalit woman and later urinated on her face when she asked for water.
A First Information Report (number–216/2023) was registered at the Bindki police station on June 22. This FIR was registered on the orders of the district court.
The organiser called Bindki Station House Officer (SHO) Arun Chaturvedi on July 6 to inquire about the case. Chaturvedi said the accused have not yet been caught by the police. The case was registered on the court’s order, he cannot comment on why the case was not registered earlier as he is not authorised to do so.
In both Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, police have registered criminal complaints under the relevant sections, but no such reports have come to light from West Bengal. The identities of the accused men are not yet known and no police action has been initiated.
