A 23-year-old Dalit allegedly committed suicide in a village in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra last week allegedly after some police personnel assaulted his mother and sisters.
Sachin Gopal Goradwar ended his life on March 14, by jumping into a well near his house in Katali village, about 10 km from here in the presence of five personnel. According to the mother, Rekha Goradwar, four policemen and a woman constable came to her house on the night of March 14 and started searching it, on the suspicion that the family sold liquor illegally in the prohibited district.
“When we told them that we do not sell liquor, they thrashed my son Sachin with batons and belts. I told them to arrest him if they found him guilty but they started beating him. My daughters Minakshi and Archana tried to interfere and save Sachin from the policemen but they started beating and abusing us all,” said Ms. Goradwar, who lost her husband five years ago.
‘Did not save him’
“Sachin ran off from the police van when they were taking him with them and jumped into the nearby well in front of those policemen. They did not even try to save him,” she added.
According to Sachin’s younger sisters Minakshi and Arachana, all the police personnel left the spot immediately. After half an hour, some 10 to 15 policemen came to the village and recovered Sachin’s body from the well.
According to Sachin’s cousin Dinesh, the policemen took the body to Gadchiroli, performed post-mortem without Panchnama and returned the body next day.
“They told us to cremate the body as early as possible,” Pyarelal Mamidwar, the victim’s brother-in-Law, said.
“But we told them that Sachin killed himself due to police harassment and we would not cremate his body unless the police personnel involved were arrested,” he added.
One Jamadar (head constable) from Gadchiroli came to the village and assured the family of action against the erring police personnel after which the victim’s body was cremated, the mother said.
But even after a week, police have not registered a case against the personnel named by the family in a written compliant.
Gadchiroli police station inspector B.B. Thombe denied the allegations of the family. “Our team found 15 liquor bottles in that house. We came to know that Ms. Goradwar sold the liquor illegally and not her children. Since it was already late in the evening, we could not have arrested the woman so we told them that we would come the next day to arrest her. The young boy may have committed suicide due to the fear of her mother getting arrested” Mr.Thombe told The Hindu .
Gadchiroli Superintendent of Police Mohd. Suvez Haque could not be reached for his comments.
