The dalits have lodged a formal complaint of untouchability against the Magars with support from the Crime Vigilance Center. Siraha district police chief Ramesh Bhattarai has assured that action has been initiated in the case. [break]
Representative of the center, Radheshyam Ram, said the Magars have stopped the Mijars from filling water for the last one month. The ban came following a dispute between the communities after two Mijar kids were thrashed for trying to drink water from the well when Magars were filling water.
Local Tej Kumari Ruwa had thrashed five-year-olds Ashok and Subhash when they went to the well to drink water on their way home from school on June 9, according to Rishi Maya Mijar, a local. “When we went to drink water from the well, she thrashed us saying untouchables should not touch the well,” Ashok recalls.
“Our kids are still terrified to go near the well since the incident,” Rishi Maya rues and adds, “We will have to leave the village if we are prevented from filling water from the only well in the village.”
The four Mijar households in the village are having torrid time after the ban as they require more water to drink during the summer heat. “We don´t get water to drink even in such hot weather. The police administration also is not sensitive to our plight and has done nothing despite our complaints,” Kanchan, the mother of thrashed Mijar kid Ashok, says.
The well dug by Siraha District Development Committee around 22 years ago is the only means of drinking water for 17 households, including 11 of Magars and two of Halwais, in the Ruwale Tole.
The Magars, however, claim they have not banned Mijars from filling water. “We have let them use the well at other times. They cannot fill water with us as they are from a lower caste,” argues Tej Kumari, who thrashed the Mijar kids.
Untouchability has been banned by the law since 1963.
Related story
Dalit lives matter
