Mahadalit women stopped from entering temple, thrashed in Bihar, says FIR

Muzaffarpur: Tension prevails at a village in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, 71 km north of state capital Patna, for the second consecutive day after a Mahadalit woman registered an FIR alleging that she and other women of her family were prevented by some village strongmen from entering a temple.

Complainant Usha Devi, 30, of Bishunpur Baghnagari village in Sakra police station area said they were also thrashed for registering their protest on Friday.

Confirming the lodging of FIR, police said the injured women were provided first aid at Sakra primary health centre.

Muzaffarpur deputy superintendent of police (east) Mutaffique Ahmad said a police team was camping at the village to avert any untoward incident.

“We have strengthened security arrangements in the village in the view of tension after registration of FIR against four named and three unidentified accused. The FIR was registered on the basis of statement made by Devi,” Ahmed said.

The DSP said Devi, in her petition, alleged that Srinath Mishra, Aman Kumar, Shiv Kumar Mishra and some other village strongmen stopped them from entering a village temple when she her relatives went there to perform a pre-wedding ritual of her brother-in-law. “Devi said when they offered resistance, they were beaten up,” the DSP added.

However, a villager, on the condition of anonymity, said a cart accompanying Devi and her family was playing bawdy songs on the public address system. “The accused asked them to stop playing of songs. This infuriated the male members of Devi’s family, who got into heated arguments with the accused,” he said.

Shravan Giri, the priest of the temple where incident allegedly took place, denied any such incident. “Some women had come to perform puja. They even handed over to me ‘dakshina’ (donation) after offering prayers,” he added.

Source: Hindustan Times