Cops beat boy in Maharashtra over community

COMMUNITY CONFLICT? Dattatreya was beaten brutally and then arrested, allegedly for dacoity.

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Pandharpur/ Mumbai (Maharashtra): Sunita Shinde is knocking on every door she can to get her 21-year-old son out of jail.

Sunita says on August 7, her son Dattatreya was woken up at 4 am at his Pandharpur home by the police, beaten brutally and then arrested, allegedly for dacoity.

But Sunita says her son is innocent and was simply targeted because he's from the Pardhi community.

“They simply picked him up and put him in jail, They have found no evidence. We don't even know which house the robbery was conducted in. It's all because he is a Pardhi,” said Sunita.

The Pardhis are a nomadic tribe from Maharashtra. The British labelled them as criminal with the Criminal Tribes Act because they rebelled against the Raj.

The Government of India repealed the Criminal Tribes Act in 1949, but now almost 60 years on people like Sunita and many others like her are still fighting to get the taint off the Pardhi community.

"If he's a pardhi then he's definitely a thief, that's the mindset, no matter how he behaves,” said Dattatreya's brother, Devappa Shinde.

The police however say it's not a question of community and that they caught Dattatreya red-handed.

“There is no question of blaming the whole community. There was evidence against the accused,” said Pandarpur Gramin Police Station Police Inspector Shankar Jirge.

An NGO has supported Sunita's claim that the Pardhis are treated as habitual criminals by the police and have now registered a complaint with the State Human Rights Commission.

(With inputs from Uttam Abhangrao)