A Dalit teenager who had been battling for life in hospital for more than a week after being allegedly beaten by a group of men on October 15 passed away on Friday morning. There were scenes of grief and simmering tension in Mohalla Ambedkar in Greater Noida as the body was brought to the boy’s home in the afternoon amid heavy police deployment.
It took almost an hour of negotiations in the lane packed with dozens of people before the family, who were demanding justice for 17-year-old Aniket Jatav, allowed the body to be taken for cremation.
Aniket, a mechanic and driver, was allegedly assaulted by upper-caste men on the night of October 15, his birthday. “He had just cut the cake when they came,” Aniket’s uncle Sumit said. “They had been threatening him for weeks.”
Sumit too was allegedly beaten by the men. His right eye was swollen purple and blue on Friday.
On Friday afternoon, scores of male mourners sat on charpoys and plastic chairs outside Aniket’s home near Ambedkar Chowk. Inside the courtyard, the cries of women rose and fell in waves. “Arre Annu, mere Annu,” Aniket’s mother cried, clutching her chest as relatives held her tightly.
Throughout the day, a stream of politicians arrived at the house to offer their condolences. Among them was Jewar MLA Dhirendra Singh of the BJP, who sat quietly among the mourners.
Singh spoke briefly with Aniket’s parents, and said he had arranged for a call with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. “The CM has assured strict action,” he told reporters later.
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Local leaders from the BSP and Samajwadi Party also arrived and promised the family their support.
The Rabupura police registered an FIR on October 17, two days after the alleged assault. The FIR named seven upper-caste men. Two have been arrested so far; the others remain absconding.
Sumit said the trouble began a month ago, after Aniket intervened at a local Ramleela where a group of Thakur men were allegedly abusing one of his friends. Words and casteist slurs were repeatedly hurled at Aniket by upper-caste men in the days that followed, Sumit said.
“Two days before the attack, they caught Aniket outside his house and hit him with a rock,” Sumit said. “Aniket slapped one of them in retaliation. They told him that he had forgotten his aukaat,” Sumit said.
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That night, as Aniket was cutting his birthday cake in a nearby field, the same group returned, this time carrying rods and hockey sticks, Sumit said.
“They started hitting me. I thought Aniket must have escaped. But we later found him lying unconscious behind some bushes, his body soaked in blood,” Sumit said. Both Sumit and Aniket were taken to a local hospital, from where they were referred to a hospital in Delhi. Sumit was discharged two days ago.
“An FIR was first lodged for assault, and it was later amended to murder… We are verifying the allegations of caste abuse. A case under the SC/ST Act has been registered, and efforts are on to arrest and identify the remaining accused,” SHO Sujeet Upadhyay said.
The Jatavs of Rabupura, a large Dalit community scattered across the southern edge of Gautam Buddh Nagar district, live side by side with upper-caste families who, villagers said, control most of the land.
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Aniket’s father is unemployed. His mother said Aniket, her oldest child, was the only earning member of the family. “He fixed motorbikes all day, brought home whatever he could. That money kept us going,” she said.
“They killed my son,” she cried. “We don’t want money. We don’t want a job. We want blood for blood.”
