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Last week in India, a man allegedly beheaded a 13-year-old girl after rejecting her. Police said the teenage girl belonged to a caste inferior to that of the man accused of having killed her. A complaint has been filed in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu in India, according to CNN.
"The girl was brutally murdered.The investigation is ongoing and the accused has been arrested," said Ponkarthik Kumar, senior police chief, according to CNN.
This man – who has not yet been named in the international press – was charged under a law criminalizing caste-based crimes. According to NBC News, the constitution prohibits such crimes, which can result in up to a year in jail. The law has been in force since 1989, according to CNN.
In 2016, more than 47,000 crimes were committed against people belonging to lower castes, according to CNN. The Dalits – a group formerly called "untouchables" who are often denied things like education because of their caste – have been faced with an increasing number of attacks for "mundane reasons," according to the BBC.
"Why does the establishment not show this strength?" Such incidents occur constantly .When advocating for advocacy, political will must be questioned or lack of political will must be restored. cause, "said Radhika Ganesh, a political activist. Rights of Dalits, told CNN.
The girl had apparently "rejected her advances" before allegedly beheading the young teenager, according to The Wire, a publication based in India. "It's kind of a MeToo crime." Rajalakshmi was killed because she had rejected his advances, because she talked about it, "said A. Kathir, executive director of Evidence. (movement promoting the human rights of Dalits). "In fact, it is both a caste crime and a sexual offense, and both levels need to be addressed."
The girl and her mother were alone at home during the attack, according to The Wire. The girl's father "works in a cemetery, because he often stays away from home at night," Kathir told The Wire.
The girl's family said that the crime should be tried as a caste-related offense. "He made sexual advances to [her]. Then he was furious that a Dalit woman had the audacity to reject him, "Rajalakshmi's brother-in-law, P. Jagadeesh, told The Wire. We demand that he not be released on bail judged under the POCSO law. "
The 13-year-old is not the only Dalit to have been threatened – or confronted – with violence in recent months. On June 17, a 20 – year – old Dalit man was riding on horseback while traveling to his own wedding when he was ambushed, according to the BBC. According to the press channel, he should have been escorted by the police to his wedding. Another Dalit man who was riding for his wedding was threatened in 2015.
In mid-June, three Dalit boys were stripped naked and forced to walk naked in their village before being beaten in Maharashtra, a state in western India. Their crime? According to a local newspaper, the boys swam in a well belonging to a family of a higher caste. "We are still afraid of new attacks," said the mother of a victim at BBC Marathi.
In May, two Dalits were killed in Tamil Nadu after sitting in front of two people belonging to a higher caste in a temple. The BBC reported that 15 people traveled to the men's district and, in addition to killing both men, they injured six others. "The men who were injured had deep cuts in the body with sickles," said a police official.
