Rajkot: A 19-year-old Rajkot: A 19-year-old Dalit youth succumbed to injuries on Friday evening in Rajkot a week after he was thrashed mercilessly by the owner of the factory where he worked over suspicion of theft.
The police have sent the body of the youth , a native of Sagar district in Madhya Pradesh, for postmortem and started the procedure to include the section of murder in the complaint filed against factory owner Vijay Patel. Though he incident occurred on June 4, Sonu’s family decided to file a police complaint against Patel for assault only on Friday afternoon. However, within hours of the police complaint being filed, succumbed to injuries.
According to the police complaint filed by Ahirvar (44), his son Sonu worked as a labourer in Patel’s factory in area of the city. Mahesh and his wife Janki work in a plastic factory. On June 4, Janki informed Mahesh that Patel had confined Sonu and was beating him mercilessly suspecting that their son had stolen from his factory.
Mahesh stated in his complaint that when he reached Patel’s factory he saw Patel beating his son with the metal buckle attacked to a leather belt. Mahesh then begged Patel not to beat his son. But Mahesh’s plea made Patel more furious and he started hitting Sonu harder with the buckle.
Patel was also hurling abuses at Sonu as he continued the onslaught on the youth and kept accusing him of stealing valuables from his factory.
Sonu suffered severe injuries on his body and he was taken home by his parents. He was taken to a private hospital in Shapar on June 7 after his condition did not improve and the pain became unbearable. Sonu was referred to Rajkot civil ho hospital by the doctors at the private hospital.
At the Rajkot civil hospital, the doctors informed the police as this was a medico legal case. However, Mahesh refused to file a police complaint at that time saying that his son had suffered minor injuries and that they had settled the issue with Patel.
On Friday morning, Sonu’s health deteriorated and he lost consciousness. This was when the family decided to lodge a police complaint. A Shapar Veraval police station personnel reached the civil hospital and registered a complaint of assault against Patel at about 7pm. But within a few hours,at about 11pm on Friday, Sonu succumbed to his injuries The investigation of the case was handed over to deputy superintendent of police (SC/ST cell) Maharshi Raval. When contacted Raval told TOI, “We have sent the body for the forensic postmortem to know the exact cause of death.
After we get the report we will add a section of murder against Patel, most probably on Monday.”
Courtesy : timesofindia
Note: This news piece was originally published in timesofindia.indiatimes.com and used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Rights.
