An eight-year-old boy from a Dalit community in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region was stripped naked and made to sit on hot tiles, causing several burn-injuries on his bodies.
The incident took place in the region's Wardha area on 15 June when the temperature touched 45 degrees Celsius. The boy is undergoing treatment at the Wardha district hospital.
WHAT HAPPENED
According to locals, the incident happened allegedly after the boy entered a temple in Wardha to play, reported TheWire.in on Wednesday, 19 June. Inside the temple, the boy was immediately stopped by a daily wage worker, Amol Dhore and brutalised.
The police, however, claimed that the child was not beaten up for entering the premise but for trying to “steal” from the temple.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE BOY ESCAPED
After the boy managed to escape from the temple, he narrated the incident to his family who then registered a case with the Arvi police. Dhore was booked under several sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Indian Penal Code for the violence.
Social activist Dhanraj Vanjari, who is legally aiding the child’s family said that additional sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act were also registered, since the he was stripped naked.
On 16 June, the accused tried to flee from the village but was intercepted by the police later in the day.
THE BIG PICTURE
Police told the news website that several cases of atrocities had been reported in Wardha, especially Arvi police station "but this was an extreme case of violence."
Vanjari, while speaking to The Wire, claimed that had it been a boy from the upper caste, such an atrocity wouldn't have taken place.
(With inputs from TheWire.in)
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