Maharashtra orders CID probe into Dalit killings

Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil on Tuesday ordered a CID probe into the hacking of three Dalit youths belonging to the Mehtar community (manual scavenger) in a remote hamlet in Ahmednagar district, early this month.

Last week Dalit rights activists had met National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) members seeking a probe into the murders which were allegedly committed by members of the upper castes.

The Dalit activists and members from Mehtar community met Patil and asked him to look into the issue as the local police were reportedly moving with clay-feet in the case.

As per the case, in the first week of January police recovered the mutilated bodies of three youths in their twenties from a septic tank and fields in Nevasa taluka of Ahmednagar. The victims-Sandeep Thanwar, Sachin Gharu and Rahul Kandare- according to case papers had migrated to Kharwandi, Ganeshwadi in Ahmednagar, to work as manual scavengers in a local school.

Post-mortem reports revealed that the youths were probably stranguled and limbs chopped off before dumping one of them in a septic tank and the other two in a nearby field.