K R Pete, Karnataka: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) State president, M. Krishnamurthy has asserted that the best reply Dalits can give to upper caste people who deny entry in temple is to boycott visiting temples itself.
He was addressing the Dalits of Hariharpura village in K. R. Pet Taluk where it was reported that some upper caste people had thrashed Dalits for entering the temple a few days ago.
During his visit to the village to express his sympathy with the Dalits, he made it clear that with the Constitution, B. R. Ambedkar has given fundamental rights such as reservation, education, employment and equality.
“ He has not considered entry into temples of Dalits as any right. Therefore, it is better for you to simply boycott visiting temples and Gods of upper caste people”, he said.
He asserted that upper caste people will never want any type of change in the social system they have established for centuries.
“It is better that instead of expecting them to change, the Dalits should change their system”, he advised the Dalits.
“ Ultimately, Dalits should show their self respect with self employment. We should protect our rights”, he said.
Murthy assured of getting legal justice to the victims.
On the occasion, BSP district in-charge, Chaluvaraju, district secretary, Shivakumar, taluk in-charge Govindraju, taluk president, Basti Pradeep, general secretary Gangadhar was present.
The Temple entry incident
The incident of Dalits being beaten up by some upper caste people got reported a few days ago from Hariharpura village after Dalits had entered temple during Hanuman Jayanti programme.
A complaint was later filed against some 27 youth of upper caste by Dalits.
In the complaint, the victims have alleged that the men of upper caste accused the Dalits of sacrilege.
On the night of December 16, around 60 persons of upper caste barged into the Dalit colony with deadly weapons at around 11:30 pm.
They first began vandalizing the properties and then started attacking people include, aged, women and disabled persons of Dalit community.
The injured including Darshan, Sunil, Lohit, Abhishek,Vinay, Sanjay, Chalavaraju, Bhagyamma, Kumar, Ranjamma, Shobha and Nanjayya have filed complaints against 27 persons of attack.
The accused include Manjunath, Sridhar, Santosh, Srinivas, Ranjut, Satish, Sawamy, Muttu, Rajit, Manjunath, Mohan, Manja, Harish, Venkatesh, Raghu, Ravi, Manja, Suresh, Gundu, Bhanuprakash, Shivakumar, Darshan, Deepu etc.
Following the complaint, upper caste people were reportedly angry with Dalits. To show their anger, they had socially boycotted Dalits.
They had shut all the shops of the village in order to prevent Dalits from buying or availing services of the shops.
The Dalits youth have posted the video of shops being closed in the village.
Meanwhile the Dalits alleged that despite filing a case, till date, no accused has been arrested.
