DHARMAPURI: In a shocking incident, a 46-year-old caste Hindu man on Wednesday allegedly assaulted a 14-year-old Dalit boy, forcing the child to eat his own faeces and carry the excreta in his hands.
After Dalit residents of Kodarampatti village in Pennagaram filed a petition, the Pennagaram police on Friday filed an FIR against the man, identified as K Rajasekar, under provisions of the SC/ST Atrocities Act for forcing a minor to undertake manual scavenging and for beating the child for trespassing into private land.
According to the FIR, on Wednesday, the child was playing in the private land and defecated there. Rajasekar, the owner of the land, saw him and called out to him.
When the 14-year-old approached him, the man allegedly started verbally abusing the child by his caste name. The FIR states that he pulled out a bamboo shoot, planted nearby, and thrashed the boy. It is alleged that Rajsekar then forced the child to eat the faeces. The 14-year-old, fearing further beatings, picked up the faeces and ran back to his home located some 15 metres away.
The child’s father told The New Indian Express that the boy is traumatised and has not spoken properly to even his family or friends since the incident. The boy had only defecated in the land because of the urgency of the situation. The child has also sustained physical injuries, he said.
“We filed a complaint with Pennagaram police on Wednesday. They asked us to put the complaint in a petition box set up here because of the COVID-19 panic,” he said.
Sub inspector M Mari looked into the complaint on Thursday and based on his investigation, an FIR was filed on Friday, said Periyar, the Pennagaram inspector.
Periyar said Rajasekar has been booked under Section 323 of IPC for voluntarily causing hurt and under Section 3(j) of the SC/ST Act for forcing SC persons to do manual scavenging.