A Dalit youth was beaten to death with sticks and batons, and his mother was allegedly stripped and assaulted, by a group of men in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar district this past week. The accused were pressurising the victims’ family to withdraw a four-year-old police sexual harassment case filed by the sister of the murdered youth, the family said.
The murder and sexual assault, which took place in a district with a significant Dalit population, have sparked a backlash from Opposition parties. The Congress accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of making Madhya Pradesh “a laboratory of atrocities on Dalits”, and shared images posted on social media allegedly showing the accused posing with a senior Minister of the BJP government in the State.
