One person has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a Dalit man and made to lick the shoes of a contractual power worker after the accused got angry, reports The Indian Express.
The accused has been identified as Tejbali Singh Patel, who is a contractual lineman in the Shahganj area of Sonbhadra district.
The incident is said to take place on Thursday and videos of the incident went viral on social media on Saturday.
In one of the videos, the 21-year-old Dalit man is seen being assaulted, and the accused asked another person who was shooting the video to share it “in a group”.
A case was filed after Rajendra Chamar filed a complaint at the Shahganj police station against the accused, following which Patel was arrested.
Speaking to reporters, Chamar said, “I had gone to my uncle’s house. There was some issue with the power wire, and I was looking at it. Tejbali reached there and started assaulting me with sticks. He also made me spit on his shoes and lick it. For two days, I didn’t say anything. But now, I have come to lodge a case.”
The case against Patel has been lodged under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), and 506 (criminal intimidation) and under sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
This is yet another incident which comes days after a man was seen urinating on a tribal man in Madhya Pradesh’s Sidhi district. The video which was widely shared on social media created a political uproar across the country against the BJP-ruled state, leading to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan meeting the victim and apologising to him for the incident.