NEW DELHI: The alleged lynching of a Dalit youth by a mob in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli district — the parliamentary constituency of former Congress president and current Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi — is set to become a major political issue.
The Congress plans to highlight the incident as evidence of the ruling BJP’s “anti-Dalit mindset” and launch a statewide agitation to target the Yogi Adityanath government.
Following the incident, four police personnel, including an assistant sub-inspector, were suspended, while the station house officer was transferred.
Rae Bareli police registered a case against 12 people on the basis of the video clips which emerged after the incident.
The Congress party condemned the killing, calling it an evidence of rising crimes against Dalits under the Yogi government. The party said the CM had given criminals a free hand. Rae Bareli MP and Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi also spoke to the victim’s father and brother, assuring them unflinching support of the Congress party which, he claimed, would stand firmly with the family in their fight for justice.
Sources said Congress national general secretary Avinash Pandey held a meeting with senior party leaders to chalk out a strategy to make the incident a major political issue and “expose” the saffron party.
Meanwhile, five accused – Vaibhav Singh, Vipin Maurya, Vijay Kumar, Sahdev, and Suresh Kumar – were arrested from Gulrahia intersection. Rae Bareli SP Dr Yashveer Singh transferred Unchahar Kotwal Sanjay Kumar to the crime branch and suspended three policemen for negligence.
Police authorities said raids were underway to nab the remaining accused.
It may be recalled that a Dalit youth, who was brutally beaten to death in Raebareli on October 2, after being accused of stealing a drone, is shown crying out Rahul Gandhi’s name in a video related to assault going viral on social media. The first videos showing the youth being beaten and his body lying near a railway track surfaced the same day on October 3 followed by another video on October 4, revealing the mob’s brutality.
In response to the youth’s screams, a voice from the mob says: “Everyone here is Baba’s people,” before resuming the beating.
The attackers hit his thighs and private parts with belts and sticks, ignoring his pleas. The district police recovered the body near Ishwardaspur village in Unchahar area of Rea Bareli district.
The deceased was identified as 38-year-old Hariom, son of Gangadin, a resident of Tarawati ka Purwa village in Fatehpur district. There were marks of beating across his body, a deep wound on his head, and belt marks on his chest.
According to the investigation into the incident so far, Hariom was traveling on foot towards Ishwardaspur on the night of October 1 when villagers caught him, suspecting him of theft. They stripped him half-naked, tied his hands with his own shirt, and kept hitting him with sticks and belts. He repeatedly pleaded his innocence, but the mob ignored his pleas of innocence.
After the severe beating, the villagers took the half-conscious man outside the village, tied him to a pole near a canal, and assaulted him again. Later, they dumped him near the railway track where he succumbed to grievous injuries sustained during the beating. Victim’s wife, Pinky, said Hariom was mentally weak and had come to meet her in Unchahar, where she works at Punjab National Bank’s NTPC branch. After beating him half-dead, people took him outside the village near the canal. Tied him to a pole and beat him. Then threw him near the railway track.
Meanwhile, AICC media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said on Sunday that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has spoken to the father and brother of the Dalit youth who was lynched in Raebareli and stands in complete solidarity with them in this hour of unbearable grief.
In a post on X, Khera said the horrific lynching is both heartbreaking and enraging.
"In his final moments, as he was being mercilessly beaten with sticks and belts, the deceased young man remembered his last hope - Shri Rahul Gandhi," he said.
"For Rahul ji, who represents Raebareli in Parliament and considers its people his family, this tragedy is deeply wounding. He has personally spoken to the father and brother of the deceased and stands in complete solidarity with them in this hour of unbearable grief," Khera said.
"He (Gandhi) has also expressed his profound concern over the dangerous normalisation of lynching in India, vowing that such violent elements must face their legal end. Justice must be served," the Congress leader said.
Gandhi is currently on a four-nation tour of South America.
Congress spokesperson Shama Mohamed said she came across a very disturbing video from Raebareli, where a Dalit youth, Hariom, was lynched and killed by a few criminals.
"When he repeatedly said 'Rahul Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi', those criminals claimed they were supporters of Yogi.
This is what the double engine of Yogi and Modi has done in Uttar Pradesh.
Their politics of hate is taking the lives of Dalits and the marginalised," she said on X.
"Muslims are under attack, women are unsafe, and Dalits and OBCs are being targeted -- no one is safe under the BJP government anywhere," she said.
Police in Raebareli arrested five men on Saturday for allegedly lynching Hariom after mistaking him for a drone thief.
Police said Hariom, reportedly mentally unstable, was walking to his in-laws' house in Dandepur Jamunapur when a mob surrounded him and accused him of being a member of a gang marking houses with drones for theft.
He was beaten with belts and sticks and died soon after.
(With inputs from PTI.)
