Jhajjar, November 20
Even before the ink on the agreement between the district administration and the Dulina Goraksha Sangharsh Samiti could dry, the agreement seems to be fizzling out.
The samiti, which had been leading the agitation against the arrest of six persons in connection with the alleged lynching of five Dalits at Dulina village on October 15 on suspicion of their being cow-slaughterers, had called off the agitation yesterday following the agreement.
Under the agreement, the samiti had sought two days’ time for the surrender of the suspects and had asked the police to stop raiding villages in search of them. It was informally agreed between the administration and the samiti that 10 persons each from Suhra, Kaloi, Silani and Silana villages would surrender before the police.
However, residents of these villages today did not agree to surrender. Representatives of Suhra village, to which a majority of the suspects belong, today conveyed their reluctance to surrender to Acharya Vijay Pal of the Jhajjar Gurukul, who was one of the prominent members of the samiti to hold talks with the administration.
It is learnt that the response from the residents of the other three villages was also more or less similar to that of Suhra.
The villagers wanted another meeting with Mr Nafe Singh Rathee, INLD MLA from Bahadurgarh, who had brokered the agreement on behalf of the government before a final decision was taken on the issue of courting arrest. They wanted the MLA to come to Suhra which he refused.
However, he agreed to meet the villagers on November 22 on the Gurukul complex.
The villagers, it seems, have been warned by certain legal experts that an early bail for a
murder accused was rare. The villagers fear that if they surrendered to the law, they would have to spend a long time in jail, despite the assurances of their leaders. Hence, another meeting with the chief broker of the agreement.
Meanwhile, the administration is keeping its fingers crossed. It has the satisfaction of having divided the ranks of the agitators, who have developed doubts about the Gurukul, which was the main force behind the agitation.
The administration feels that even if the samiti failed to persuade the suspects to surrender before the police, it had lost the moral right to lead a fresh agitation in case the police went ahead with the arrests of the remaining accused.
A number of villagers in Suhra alleged that there was a “hidden” agreement between the administration and the Gurukul, as part of which no action would be taken against any inmate of the Gurukul, though they were also present when the Dalits were lynched to death. Sources close to the Gurukul deny it.
As a precaution against any possible future police crackdown, residents of the four villages have mounted “theekri pehra (night vigil)”. They blocked approach roads to their villages to prevent any police vehicles from entering the villages during night.
