Mirchpur Dalit killings: HC awards life to 12, varying jail terms to 21 others

The Delhi High Court today sentenced to life imprisonment 12 members of dominant Jat community and 21 other convicts to varying jail terms in the 2010 Mirchpur Dalit killing case in which a 60-year-old man and his physically- challenged teenaged daughter were burnt alive.

The high court said there was a "deliberate targeting" of the houses of Balmiki community members by the Jats and it was "an instance of caste-based violence meant to teach the Balmikis a lesson for perceived insults".

In a 209-page verdict, a bench of Justices S Muralidhar and I S Mehta said 71 years after Independence, instances of "atrocities" against Scheduled Castes by those belonging to dominant castes have shown "no signs of abating".

"The incidents that took place in Mirchpur between April 19 and 21, 2010 serve as yet another grim reminder of 'the complete absence of two things in Indian society' as noted by Dr B R Ambedkar when he tabled the final draft of the Constitution of India before the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949. One was 'equality' and the other 'fraternity'," the bench observed.

On April 21, 2010, the house of victim Tara Chand was set ablaze by the members of the Jat community after a dispute between the two communities at Mirchpur village in Haryana's Hisar district, which led the father and the daughter to be burnt alive.

Several other members of the Dalit community were injured and there was "large scale destruction" of their properties by the Jats, the court noted in its verdict.

On the burning down of the Dalits' properties, the high court said it was not a case of an accidental fire spreading quickly as a result of cow dung cakes or other flammable materials lying around, but a "deliberate, pre-planned and carefully orchestrated act."