Mangalore: Dalits Threaten to Hold Funeral at Village Office...
Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network—Mangalore (RS/CN)
Mangalore, Feb 24: Members of the Dalit community protested the loss of their cremation ground, which was acquired for the airport, near Kenjar in Bajpe under Malavoor village, by making arrangements to cremate a woman’s body in front of the village office.
The community members and relatives of the dead woman started demanding a cremation ground at the village office on the morning of Wednesday February 24.
When the officials failed to respond in a favourable manner, the community members backed by the local activists of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) started their protest by preparing to cremate the woman in front of the village office. They started to dig the land and arranged wood also.
The deceased woman is Gulabi (58), a member of the Godda community. There are about 50 houses in Kenjar area, which have been deprived of a cremation ground after the acquisition of land conducted several years back.
When village office personnel saw the protest turning serious with the people preparing to cremate the body in front of their office, they informed the Tahsildar.
Tahsildar Ravichandra Naik arrived at the spot and assured that land for cremation would be allotted in ten days as it is a long process to pinpoint government land in the area.
Seeing the problem of the people, a local landlord provided land for the funeral of the woman.
The community leaders were informed that the protest for the cremation ground will continue if the village office failed to allocate the land in ten days.