M A I N   N E W S

Many Dalits missing, children stay away from schools
Dharmendra Joshi
Tribune News Service

Gohana (Sonepat), September 1
Babli of Balmiki Colony here is worried. She does not know whereabouts of her family members since the torching over 50 houses in the colony on Wednesday afternoon. Sobbing Babli told The Tribune that her husband Rana, their two young children, Sonia (19) and Shammi (17) were still missing. She said she had gone to her parents’ house in Sirsa a few days ago and returned to her house yesterday itself.

‘She was shocked to see her house with several other houses burning said Babli sitting helplessly on a cot in front of her torched house in a narrow lane of the colony. ‘I have tried to find my family members at every possible place since yesterday but to no avail.’

There are a large number of Dalits who still are missing even after 24 hours of the incident.

Aged Tara Chand of Kunjpura in Karnal district came to the colony today morning to know condition of her daughter Geeta, married to Mahabir of the colony several years ago but he could find neither Geeta nor any of her family members.

Tara Chand said that he had come to know about the incident after reading newspapers and came to the colony to know whereabouts of her daughter Geeta, her husband Mahabir and their three children.

Tara Chand searched for them but could not fine any of them, he said, adding that his son-in-law’s house was gutted in a fire that engulfed over 48 houses of the colony.

Meanwhile most of the 400 children of the colony, most of whom study in government high school and Swami Satyanand Public School, did not go to schools as they had been sent to safer places by their parents.

Shakuntala, whose house was gutted in the incident said that she and her husband had sent their three children Vikas (15), Varinder (13) and Rachna (8) to her parents’ house in Rohtak. All of them were studying in different classes in government high school.

Most of the Dalits did not return to their houses even today. Only aged persons in some of the houses were seen assessing damage to property by members of upper castes by arson and looting.

They had sent most of their women and young children to their relatives houses in different districts of the state including Panipat, Rohtak and Karnal, said Raj Kumar, a farmer Municipal Council member residing in the colony.