Nagpur, June 15 (IANS) The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court Tuesday adjourned to July 14 the judgement in the 2006 Khairlanji dalit massacre case, in which a mother and her three children were sexually assaulted, paraded naked in the village and then hacked to death.
Justices A.P. Lavande and R.C. Chauhan posted the matter for July 14 shortly after it came up before them this morning.
The trial court had awarded death to six accused: Shatrughana Dhande, Vishwanath Dhande, Ramu Dhande, Sakru Binjewar, Jagdish Mandlekar and Prabhkar Mandlekar. The high court has to now confirm the judgment.
The horrific incident unfolded on the evening of Sep 29, 2006, when a group of villagers descended on the Bhotmange family in Khairlanji village in Maharashtra’s Bhandara district.
They dragged out Surekha Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange (44), her sons Roshan (23), Sudhir (21) and daughter Priyanka (18), assaulted them brutally, paraded them naked in the village, sexually abused them with sticks and then hacked them to death. The women were gang-raped.
The attackers mutilated the private parts of the two sons — all this in full public view of many other villagers.
Surekha’s husband, Bhaiyyalal, who had gone to work in the fields also witnessed the incident while hiding in a nearby hut. He managed to escape the mob brutality.
A few days before the incident – which led to widespread Dalit protests all over Maharashtra – Surekha Bhotmange had lodged a police complaint in a land dispute against some villagers. The attacks on the Bhotmanges were a revenge for Surekha’s daring.
