Rahul visits kin of Dalits killed in Hisar

NEW DELHI: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday met the relatives of a disabled Dalit girl and her father who were burnt alive during caste violence in Haryana’s Hisar district last week.

He visited Mirchpur, the village in Hisar where a minor clash between Dalit and Jat youth escalated to full-blown attack on the Dalits and led to the torching of about 20 Dalit homes.

The visit highlights Mr Gandhi’s continuing bid to reach out to Dalits, a community that Congress is wooing in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, within days of the cut motions in Lok Sabha which the government was able survive only with the backing of BSP. Until recently, Congress and BSP, fighting over the Dalit votebank in UP, had been at each other’s throats. However, the two sides called a cease-fire on the morning of the cut motions, invoking “secularism” and the mantra of “keeping communal forces at bay” to join hands.

That unity, however, is unlikely to last very long in view of Mr Gandhi’s visit to Hisar. The signal he sent out was that Congress would continue with its Dalit-outreach programme irrespective of whether it stepped on Ms Mayawati’s toes in the process. Also, Haryana being a Congress-ruled state, the visit is intended to induce a measure of damage control. Sources in Congress said that Mr Gandhi did not even inform the state government of his plan to visit the affected villages.

In Mirchpur, which is located about 350 km from Chandigarh, Mr Gandhi spent about two hours between noon and 2 pm meeting those affected by the violence. “He is sending out the signal that no matter which community perpetrates violence on Dalits, he will fight for their justice,” a Congress source said. He is believed to have assured the families of those who were targeted that he would speak to chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and also appraise Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on their demand for rehabilitation.

Mr Gandhi was accompanied by AICC general secretary in-charge of Haryana Prithviraj Chavan.

Seventy year-old Tara Chand and his daughter Suman, 18, who were killed in the violence. Mr Hooda had announced compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the next kin of the deceased. The incident had triggered protests from the Dalits and the Opposition INLD had demanded Mr Hooda’s resignation. The issue was also raised during the on-going session of Parliament by the Opposition.