Court Commissioner visits Hisar village

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, June 16

The High Court-appointed Court Commissioner on Saturday visited the district’s Bhatla village, where Dalits have been facing social boycott for a year.

The Court Commissioner, Additional Advocate General Deepak Balyan, met Dalit families at Ravidass Mandir.

Dalit youth Ajay Kumar, who has filed a petition in the High Court, recorded his statement before Balyan and claimed Dalit families were facing social boycott.

“We have been at the receiving end of upper-caste families. To make matters worse, the police are backing upper-caste families. These are trying times for us. My family sold off cattle as we could not get fodder for it. Upper-caste landowning men have refused to hire us for agriculture-related works,” Ajay alleged.

Later, Ajay told The Tribune that every time, members of a commission visited the village to redress grievances of Dalits, the police misled them.

The trigger for social boycott was a clash between Dalit and upper-caste youths on June 15, 2017. The dispute was over fetching water from a hand pump. Upper-caste youths had allegedly assaulted Dalit youths, who were drawing water as per their turn. Six upper-caste youths were arrested in this connection. They are out on bail.

From Ravidass Mandir, the Court Commissioner went to Government High School. There, the panchayat organised a meeting of various communities, including Dalits. In all, 15 persons — including Dalits and sarpanch Sudesh Rani — recorded their statements. All denied caste-related trouble in the village. “No person in the village is facing boycott,” Sudesh Rani claimed.

After a meeting in the school, the Court Commissioner visited a temple. Mahant Om Nath claimed no one was barred from visiting the shrine.

He also interacted with shopkeepers. All claimed that Dalits were not subjected to social boycott.

A member of the panchayat said of the 32 acres of common land, 10 acres were leased out to Dalits.

Seeds of boycott

On June 15, 2017, upper-caste youths had allegedly assaulted Dalit youths, who were drawing water as per their turn from a hand pump. Six upper-caste youths were arrested in this connection. They are out on bail.