Dalit organization says cop targeted because of caste

AHMEDABAD:

The custodial death of Ketan Patel

has taken a casteist turn with

Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch

(RDAM) on Friday handing a memorandum to the Mehsana collector alleging that constable Chirag Parmar was arrested for Patel’s death as he belongs to dalit community.

The memorandum says

Parmar

was arrested to pacify the anger of a particular community. “The PI and PSO were not arrested but Parmar was made an easy scapegoat as he is a dalit,” said an RDAM office bearer.

“Dalit community believe in the justice system and law but it needs to stress here that constable Chirag Parmar was targeted and arrested but the names of the police inspectors and police station officer (PSO) were not mentioned in the FIR for the case. The police department intentionally made Parmar an accused with mala fide intentions to save some higher ups,” the memorandum says.

“We, the people of the dalit community, demand a fair probe and the arrest of all the accused in the case, otherwise we will intensify protests and come on to the streets,” said the memorandum.

Kaushik Parmar, co-convener of RDAM, said, “We do not want to hurt the sentiments of any community and in fact we were the first to come to the support of Patidars when they started protests in the custodial death case. We just want the police and the state to follow the law and the Constitution while taking action in the state.”