A day after DNA’s report about a Katkari adivasi, Jhipru Mukane, dying after being kept chained and tortured at Shere village in Thane district, activists in the village said there was an effort to bury the case.
Activists Indavi Tulpule and Vivek Pandit went on a fact-finding mission to the village, the brick kiln where the adivasi died and the hospital where he had been taken to.
The 35-year-old man of died last week after he was beaten and tortured by local arrack vendor and brick kiln owner Balu Choudhari and his son Ganesh.
Mukane’s widow Jayabai, 30, who was denied even his body for the last rites, has alleged police complicity and apathy in her complaint. Local tehsildar S Bhutole and senior police inspector R Pingle of Vasind police station accompanied the activists.
Though Jhipru was dead when taken to the Shahapu’s Soham Hospital, Dr Shailendra Kamble, who was in-charge, did not alert the police. “He’s written in the case paper that Jhipru suffered injuries from a fall which worsened with another fall in the bathroom. When Dr Kamble realised the medico-legal complications, he asked for the body to be shifted to Kalwa civil hospital,” said Pandit.
He added that the Kalwa police inquest panchanama says the deceased’s hands and feet were covered in bandages.
“Though the rules require them to remove the bandages to ascertain the nature of injuries, the police did not do so,” added Pandit.
The activists said only a CID inquiry would reveal the facts.
Mukane’s widow, Jayabai, had to flee her village after she was allegedly threatened by the police. “The moment we got to know of police movement in Shere, I told our local activist to take Jayabai to her house in the neighbouring village,” said Tulpule of the Shramik Mukti Sanghatna, who Jayabai approached for help after her husband died.
A shaken Jayabai needed some coaxing to talk. “I want justice,” she finally said while accompanying the team to the brick kiln and arrack den, where her husband was held captive and killed. On Pandit’s and Tulpule’s insistence, the door was broken. Stains and stench from body fluids on the floor spoke of Mukane’s suffering. When DNA visited the huge Choudhari house, the upper caste Agri families wondered what the fuss was all about. The brick kiln owner and his son were not home, the family said. “What is wrong in expecting someone to repay the money they borrowed?” said a woman of the house who refused to give her name.
Tribal Welfare minister Babanrao Pachpute told DNA, “The government will take strict action against those responsible.”
