SC’s again denied water from well in Halti Administration slow in taking action against upper castes

Nitesh Sangral
JAMMU, May 22: A day after over a dozen members of Dalit community were injured in clash after denying drinking water by upper cast people in Hatli village falling in Kathua district, authorities seem to have once again ignored the issue. As per the police, the problem occurred when some members of SC families approached another well located near the houses of Thakur families to fetch water, but were denied. Later when the SCs objected the way they are being treated by the upper cast people, they were attacked by the Thakurs. Though the villages infomed the police about the issue and the issue was sorted out, but this is not the first time such incident has happened. Even the MLC B.L Kundal had raise the issue in Legislative Council. It may be recalled that similar incident was settled with the intervention of DC Kathua in January this year. On January, 20, a written report was produced by the members of the schedule caste community of village Rasoo, tehsil and district Kathua through Sarpanch Panchyat Halqa Hatli that when the members of schedule caste community had proceeded to fetch water from the another well, they were restrained by Major Singh, s/o Chatter Singh, Vijay Singh s/o Sai Singh, Devi Rani w/o Major Singh, Mangy s/o Madan Singh, Puro w/o Mehar Singh and Nisha d/o Chatter Singh, all residents of Rasoo tehsil Kathua which let to scuffle and exchange of unparliamentarily languages. A case FIR No. 68/2012 u/s 341/506 RPC, 3/7 Protection of Civil Rights Act was registered at Police Station Lakhanpur on 20-01-2012. SHO concerned alongwith Police party rushed to the spot and controlled the situation. However without taking any action, all the accused were bailed out. Sources said there were three separate wells in Rasooh village where the community had divided their wells on caste basis. This practice is going on for the last many decades. For the last several weeks, the well water of SC community has been found unfit and it also required immediate cleanliness and repair. Some Dalit families approached other two wells to fetch drinking water, but they were denied access to the wells by the members of the upper castes.