Coming on the heels of the macabre burning to death of Nashik additional collector Yeshwant Sonawane, the alleged attack by the oil mafia on cops in Rajulwadi village of Umrer in rural Nagpur has raised eyebrows.
The locals claim that it was the cops who misbehaved and ill-treated the Pardhi community. Human rights activists who visited the village have confirmed to DNA that the villagers’ allegations are true.
Rekha Bartakke of the state child rights commission said, “Practically every home here shows signs of police high-handedness. They have ransacked houses, broken cupboards and looted whatever jewellery and money they could find. The way the grain and water containers have been emptied an strewn about shows how angry the cops were.”
Yashpal Bagodia of national human rights commission said that the police did not spare women and children either. “Women were dragged by the hair though the village and beaten mercilessly. Children who tried to intervene were also not spared,” he said.
It may be recalled that on Tuesday, Umrer deputy superintendent of police Sudhakar Palandurkar and his team had claimed that a mob of 100 people attacked them while raiding kerosene dens.
‘’We were attacked with slings and stones by people who were carrying axes. Our officer’s alertness saved him from an axe blow. They attacked us with whatever they could find — sticks, stones, bricks,” Palandurkar had told the media.
Pannalal Rajput and his family who the police said were hoarding kerosene have fled the village. They have told the fact-finding teams that the police began beating up Rajput’s family members despite his willingness to surrender. “A protest morcha to the collector office a day before demanding land for the tribals as per the government policy seems to have led to this retaliatory attack,” said activist Beena Sunkar.
Repeated attempts to get Palandurkar to comment on why the police and the villagers’ versions are at variance drew no response.
