Dalit woman in UP beaten to death over 'contaminating' garbage bin

A nine-month expectant Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut was severely beaten by two upper-caste people, all because she 'contaminated' a garbage bin by touching it, killing her and her unborn child.

According to a report by the Times of India, 34-year-old Savitri, who was expecting and near-due, unintentionally touched a nearby garbage can, angering Rohit Kumar and Anju Devi, a mother-son duo from the upper-caste Thakur community, who took to beating her with sticks and kicked her in the stomach repeatedly, causing her to miscarry.

According to Savitri's husband, Dilip Kumar, the doctors sent her away when she was brought in after the miscarriage, but she fainted the next day, and when he brought her in to be checked once again, the doctors declared her brought dead.

Dilip also accused the police of nonchalance, saying they shooed him away when he first arrived to file a complaint against the duo, but only filed a FIR on the following Friday, a full 5 days after the incident.

Though initially booked under sections 323 and 504 of the IPC, which pertain to voluntarily causing hurt and intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace respectively, the police have since added sections 304A (death by negligence), 316 (causing the death of an unborn child by act surmounting to culpable homicide) and provisions of the SC/ST Act, but the two accused are currently absconding.

The post-mortem report said that Savitri's death occurred due to a head injury.