#HarishJatavLynching: Father commits suicide, family threatens to self-immolate demanding justice
In a disturbing turn of events, the blind father of a man who was lynched to death in Rajasthan's Alwar last month, committed suicide earlier this week. He was forced to take the extreme step as authorities did nothing to bring his son's killers to justice. And now, the deceased's family has threatened to alight themselves if justice is denied. Here's their heartbreaking story.
The deceased, a Dalit, has been identified as Harish Jatav. On July 16, he accidentally ran his bike over a woman. Following the accident, an angry mob thrashed him black and blue. Harish succumbed to injuries in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, where he was referred to from Rajasthan. His family alleged he died due to mob lynching, but police didn't take proper action.
Harish's family claimed one Umar Sher and his aides beat the 28-year-old, which led to his untimely demise. However, Jamaluddin, the accident victim's husband, filed a counter-FIR against him. He alleged Harish, who is a truck driver, was driving in an inebriated state. After losing his son, Harish's father Rattiram ran from pillar to post. Upset with being shunned, he allegedly ended his life.
"For the past several days, Jamaluddin and his sons were threatening my father to withdraw the case. My father was deeply troubled by these threats and ended his life on Thursday night," Rattiram's son Dinesh told TOI.
Alleging police laxity, Dinesh said they regularly visited the police station, but instead of listening to them, officers abused them. "We are poor people. What do we do? We demand that the people who killed my brother and threatened my family, they should be given strictest punishment possible," he said. Had police taken proper action, his father would have been alive, Dinesh claimed.
Meanwhile, Superintendent of Police Paris Deshmukh discredited the bereaved family's allegations of carelessness. "Prima facie, during the investigation we found that the family's claim of mob lynching was not correct. We even changed the investigating officer to ensure a fair probe," Deshmukh said. He claimed Rattiram's family leveled allegations against the woman and her husband, but in initial FIR they had named someone else.
The death of Harish, who was married and reportedly had four daughters, took political undertones when BJP MLA from Alwar Sanjay Sharma said police were trying to save the accused. "The youth was killed by members of a certain community. Even in the beginning, the police wanted to portray the incident as an accident," Sharma said. He called Rattiram's suicide unfortunate.
