Bhavnagar: Here is one more alleged ‘Dalit atrocity’ crime story that has proven to be incorrect.

A Dalit man in Bhavnagar was not killed because he was keeping/riding a horse. Police investigation has made it clear that he was actually killed for teasing a woman, following which woman’s husband killed him. The accused who don’t belong to upper caste, has been arrested.

A Dalit youth Pradip Rathod (21) was killed on 29 March in Timbi village in Umrala taluka of Bhavnagar and his family, at the time, had complained to the police that he was murdered as some upper caste men were infuriated with the fact that he rode a horse. The version was supported by a controversial foreign funded NGO ‘Navsarjan’.

Police however had even its prima facie investigation doubted the theory of upper caste atrocity on Dalit in this case, as there were number of complains regarding the character of victim Pradip Rathod.

After prolong and successful investigation, Superintendent of Police PL Mal on Sunday said that a farm labourer, identified as Munna Koli, was arrested from his native Padna village in Ahmedabad district. Koli has told police that Pradip used to tease his wife.

“Koli worked as a labourer in a nearby farm and has said that Pradip, while moving about the area on horseback, would tease his wife while he was away at work,” Mal said. The official said that the woman complained to Koli and he confronted Pradip on 29 March. “During the course of argument, Koli killed Pradip with a sickle,” Mal said.

Koli was cutting tender boughs of babool tree to be used as toothbrushes with the help of a dhariyu, a sharp-edged curved blade with wooden handle, on the border of his farm when he noticed Pradeep approaching his field on horseback. Koli stopped Pradeep and asked him why he was harassing his wife. Pradeep told him that he in fact was going to his filed only and dared the share-cropper to stop him. An argument ensued and Pradeep hit Koli with a stick which he used to control his horse. An enraged Koli hit Pradeep with the dhariya repeatedly, killing the Dalit youth on the spot.

Pradeep started harassing Koli’s wife around two months before the incident. The woman even complained to her husband about the harassment and suggested that they should approach police. However, the husband turned it down telling her they were poor and therefore they should rather focus on eking out a living by working as share-croppers

Koli, along with his wife, mother and children, left the place soon after and moved back to their native Padna village in Ahmedabad.

Koli was living in a cottage on the agricultural field, around 500 metres away from the crime scene. Hours after coming the murder, Koli and his family fled to their native village. Police did not merely rely on Koli’s confession but location of his mobile phone had also confirmed his presence at the crime scene at the time of the murder.

“We zeroed in on them after finding out that the family had been missing from the village, where the incident happened, since the day of the murder. A police team reached Koli’s village and picked him up,” Mal said.

In his complaint to Umrala police immediately after the killing, the victim’s father, Kalubhai Rathod, had claimed that some upper caste Rajput men held a grudge against his son after he bought a horse recently.He had said in his complaint that these men had threatened to kill his son if he didn’t sell off the horse. The police on Sunday said that the people named in the victim’s father’s complaint were not behind the killing.

Even in prima facie investigation police had found this version wrong. There were number of complains regarding behavior of Pradip Rathod. He would chase the school girls riding a horse and harass them.