Is watching garba a crime, ask kin of lynched Gujarat youth
AHMEDABAD: He was good to guard a festival venue as people danced to garba in Vadodara, 45km from his village. But Jayesh Solanki, a 20-year-old Dalit labourer hired for a part-time security job in the city during Navratri wasn’t considered socially fit to watch a garba gig in his own village.
A group of upper-caste men and a boy punched and kicked Solanki, and dealt a death blow by banging his head against a brick wall, apparently upset over his watching the annual event at a temple with his brother and confronting them when warned.
The murder happened at 4am on Sunday, the last day of the festival, in Bhandariya village of Gujarat’s Anand district. Police arrested eight suspects, all from an upper-caste community. They allegedly believed Dalits have no right over garba. “Is watching garba a crime?” asked Prakash Solanki, a cousin who was with Solanki. “He died protecting me.”
Prakash said his cousin was back from guard duty in Vadodara and both went to the temple to watch the local garba, where a man, identified as Sanjay Patel, slapped him for watching. Solanki tried to stop Patel and said they were there “just like them to watch garba”.
“Sanjay probably did not like Jayesh’s firm reply. He hurled abuses and left … and returned with seven people, who thrashed Jayesh and banged his head against a wall,” Prakash said.
The suspects were charged with assault and murder, and cases were filed under the stringent anti-atrocity law for safeguarding Scheduled Tribes and Castes. The adults were sent to jail while the juvenile was remanded in a home for underage offenders. Solanki’s parents are cursing themselves for letting their son go to the village festival.
“If I had stopped Jayesh from going out after he returned home from his temporary job in Vadodara, he would have been with me today,” mother Madhuben said. His 50-year-old father, Bhailal, is an agricultural labourer and the family depended on the son’s income. The 20 Dalit families of his village are determined to get justice to the family.