In an unfortunate incident, a ragpicker was brutally beaten to death in Rajkot, Gujarat on suspicion of him being a thief. In a video that has gone viral on social media, one Mukesh Vania is shown being beaten up with a stick, even as he pleads for mercy. According to reports, the people who beat him up did so on behest of the owner of the factory owned by one Radadiya, the Patidar community which supports Hardik Patel, the one who led the reservation agitation in Gujarat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrPRm54gaOs
The report in Gujarati claims that the factory owner put allegations of theft on Vania, which enraged them and beat him to a pulp. While the reason for beating him up is not yet clearly known, the police have begun an investigation on the same and as of now, 5 workers have been arrested.
Meanwhile, divisive caste activist and Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mevani took to Twitter to spread the video giving partial information, focusing on the caste.
‘Mr. Mukesh Vaniya belonging to a scheduled caste was miserably thrashed and murdered by factory owners in Rajkot and his wife was brutally beaten up’.#GujaratIsNotSafe4Dalit pic.twitter.com/ffJfn7rNSc
— Jignesh Mevani (@jigneshmevani80) May 20, 2018
While he does mention the man beaten up to death, and there is no justification for taking the law into one’s hands, he fails to mention full details of the case, which is quite an irresponsible behaviour for an MLA, especially when there has already been a precedence. While Mevani was found maintaining silence when a Dalit family was brutally beaten up for refusing to convert to Islam, videos have emerged where he was seen inciting people to take to violence during the ‘Battle of Bhima Koregaon’ event held earlier this year. During the run-up to the Karnataka elections, Mevani had tried to instigate violence ahead of Prime Minister Modi’s rally in Karnataka, urging youth to hurl chairs during the event, for which a case was registered against him.
