Dalit man set ablaze on Jan 14 dies, MP BJP attacks Cong govt

The BJP held protests across Madhya Pradesh on Saturday after a Dalit man who was set ablaze last week in the state's Sagar district died in a Delhi hospital on Thursday.

Dhanprasad Ahirwar (24) was doused with kerosene in Dharmshri Colony, some 170 kilometres from here, on January 14 allegedly by four people who wanted him to take back a police complaint. All four have been arrested.

Ahirwar, who sustained 70 percent burns, was initially treated in Sagar, then shifted to a hospital in Bhopal, and later air-lifted to a facility in New Delhi where he succumbed on Thursday morning.

"The BJP's Anusuchit Jati Morcha staged protests across the state and submitted memorandums to the district administration," said the party's state media cell in charge Lokdendra Parasher.

The BJP MLA from Naryaoli in Sagar, who took part in a protest there, said Ahirwar's death had exposed the "anti- Dalit face" of the Kamal Nath government, adding that crimes against the backward and downtrodden had increased since the Congress came to power in the state.

MP BJP chief Rakesh Singh said police did not act on Ahirwar's repeated complaints that his life was in danger, adding that law-enforcers behaved in this manner because of the Congress government's "vote-bank politics and policy of appeasement".

Singh said the party would organise a mega protest in Sagar on January 28.