Rahul Gandhi flays assault on Dalit couple in Madhya Pradesh

BHOPAL: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday condemned the attack on Dalits by policemen in Madhya Pradesh's Guna district, saying "our fight is against this injustice".

A purported video of the incident on social media showed the police hitting a Dalit man mercilessly with batons and his wife and others trying to save him.

Sharing the video of the assault on Twitter, Gandhi said, "Our fight is against this mindset and injustice".

Officials had said that a Dalit couple, who were being removed from a plot of government land allotted for a college in Guna city, consumed pesticide in protest on Tuesday.

"The (farm) land was reserved for a government model college. Rajkumar Ahirwar (38) and his wife Savitri (35) were working on the land. Gabbu Pardi, who had encroached on the land, had given them work," District Collector S Vishwanathan had said.

When officials asked them to vacate the field, they protested and drank pesticide at the behest of those who had encroached on the land, he had claimed.

The two also refused to go to hospital so the police had to use force to take them to hospital, the collector had claimed.

Taking serious view of the incident, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had ordered transfer of the collector and Superintendent of Police.