Seeking justice, a Dalit family from Jalwasa village has been living under the open sky outside police superintendent’s office in Shivpuri for past few days. The family is seeking justice and action against the relatives of a minister Suresh Dhakad Rathkheda, who allegedly were harassing them for not voting in favour of BJP in recently held by-polls. Dhakad, the loyalist of Rajya Sabha member Jyotiraditya Scindia, has won the by-election from Pohri Assembly seat.
“We are voters of Pohri assembly constituency. We were asked to vote on the lotus symbol for BJP candidate Rathkheda in the recent bypoll, but we instead gave our vote to BSP candidate. Since then we’ve been subjected to continuous torture by the relatives of Rathkheda, who won the election.”
“We’ve been physically tortured by the minister’s relatives as well as implicated in a false case by them, just for not having voted on the lotus symbol,” alleged Gyani, the elderly head of the family, while talking to the media.
One of the female members of the same family, Varsha who has been cooking food under the open sky with her two-month-old child in lap said, “We’ll not go back to our village Jalwasa until we get justice from the police. If we went back to the village, we’ll again be tortured by the minister’s relatives for having not voted for him. Our efforts to get justice from the local police station haven’t yielded fruits, as the police too are working under the pressure of relatives of Rathkheda,” alleged Varsha.
Shivpuri additional SP Pravin Bhuria said, “The complainant's family has met me and alleged being tortured by a Dhakad family in their village. They have also accused Dhakad family of getting them implicated in a false case.”
The AJK police station in-charge has been directed to probe into the family’s allegations and act accordingly, added Bhuria.
