Dalit teen tied to a tree, beaten by two men in Gujarat’s Patan district

“I had reached the examination centre, Sarvajanik Vidya Mandir High School in Dhinoj village from my home in Mehsana by state transport bus around 1 pm. While waiting outside the exam centre, Ramesh Patel whom I know by face and is a state transport bus conductor came to me. He asked me to come with him as he had some work. He took me to another person who was waiting with a motorcycle. They both rode me to a nearby farm in Gorad village,” the victim has stated in the FIR.

On their way, in Mitkumar’s insistence to leave him as he would miss his exam, the two men asked him not to worry and that they will leave him at the centre before the exam starts.

“The men tired him to a need tree and started hitting me with a stick. When he asked them the reason, they abused him and said that he should not study and take his exams but do labour work,” Mitkumar’s mother Taruna told The Indian Express. She works at a plywood factory in Mehsana which is the reason the family has shifted there. His father has recently been operated upon after he met with a road accident and is currently bed ridden.

Mitkumar did not take his exam and returned home from the field where the incident happened by taking a private taxi. He did not inform anyone till Wednesday when her mother saw injury marks on his back as he was taking a bath. On her enquiry, he narrated her the entire episode, after which he was taken to Mehsana civil hospital and an FIR was registered under IPC sections 323, 341, 504, 506 (2) and 114.

No arrests have been made so far as investigation is ongoing. “As we do not have the full name of the bus conductor accused whom the victim knows by face and in the absence of any other information and any witness, no arrests could be made so far. Though we are hoping to get details of the bus conductor and take necessary action,” said DySP R P Zala, the SCST cell in-charge of Patan.

Ruling out the rumours of a connection of an upper caste girl with whom Mitkumar is allegedly having an affair as the reason behind this incident, his mother told this paper that it is being spread by the accused against his son.

“It is being done to defame my son and so that no one sympathises with him. It is not correct,” she said.

Mitkumar is expected to be discharged from the hospital Friday and take his remaining two exams one of which is on Friday itself.