Dalit man killed for teasing woman in Gujarat's Bhavnagar; husband arrested for murder

Ahmedabad: A Dalit man was killed for allegedly teasing a woman, following which her husband, the accused, was arrested on Sunday in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district, police said. 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. [caption id=“attachment_4323051” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] 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, the official said. “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. He said that Koli, along with his wife, mother and children, left the place soon after and moved back to their native Padna village in Ahmedabad. “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.