In an extremely unfortunate and condemnable incident from Uttar Pradesh, a Dalit woman’s body was stopped from being cremated mid-way by her family members when a group of upper caste men protested and demanded that the body be taken elsewhere for cremation because the funeral ground apparently belonged to the upper castes.
The Dalit woman’s family had already put her body on the funeral pyre and were preparing for cremation near Agra in Uttar Pradesh but the cremation couldn’t be taken forward due to the objections raised by members of the upper castes. This incident is being reported from Agra’s Kakarpura village. The distressed family members were compelled to stop her cremation mid-way and took the body to another village for cremation where it was finally undertaken.
The family of the Dalit woman claims that while there was no objection to the cremation by members of the village but the upper castes made a complaint because they were Gujrati ‘Nat’.
In a series of tweets following the incident, BSP leader Mayawati called the act shameful and condemned the act of removing the Dalit woman’s body from the funeral pyre on the basis of caste discrimination utterly unacceptable.
1. यू.पी. में आगरा के पास एक दलित महिला का शव वहाँ जातिवादी मानसिकता रखने वाले उच्च वर्गों के लोगों ने इसलिए चिता से हटा दिया, क्योंकि वह शमशान-घाट उच्च वर्गों का था, जो यह अति-शर्मनाक व अति-निन्दनीय भी है। 1/3
— Mayawati (@Mayawati) July 28, 2020
She also demanded a high level inquiry into the matter and asked for the culprits to be punished with immediacy.
The police have said that it has no information on the issue and has not received any complaint, but the circle officer has been given the task of finding out more regarding the incident, based on which the police have promised to take action against the culprits.
