[Reader-list] Ramabai Nagar: 17 Years, 11 deaths, 26 injured and Justice is still awaitingREAD

[Asit Das]

Ramabai Nagar: 17 Years, 11 deaths, 26 injured and Justice is still awaiting



<http://twocircles.net/2014jul13/ramabai_nagar_17_years_11_deaths_26_injured_and_justice_still_awaiting.html#>
Submitted by TwoCircles.net <http://twocircles.net/users/twocirclesnet> on 13
July 2014 - 12:14pm

By Yogesh Maitreya, Daisy Katta,

*“That firing was something as if it was firing of India and Pakistan
war”* said
Bhante Kashyap, reminiscently, one of the eye witnesses of Ramabai Nagar
homicide of 1997, in the heartland locality of Mumbai, Ghatkopar East.
Another narrator and also an eye witness of this arrogantly brutal massacre
of Dalits in Ramabai Nagar, has depicted how thirteen years old boy had
been shot dead by police’s bullet hitting his skull and splintered it in
two pieces. Few more eye witnesses as well as victims, after seventeen
years of the incidence have gathered courage to come up on the stage,
provided by *‘Ramabai Nagar Hatyakand Sangharsh Samitee’* at their arranged
conference at Ramabai Nagar, on the seventeenth anniversary of this
incidence.

[image: Newly built up Dr.Ambedkar's statue in Ramabai Nagar]
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/94592664@N00/14640705012>
*Newly built up Dr.Ambedkar's statue in Ramabai Nagar*

On the early morning hours of 11th July 1997, the predominantly Dalit
locality of Mumbai, Ramabai Nagar, Ghatkopar East had witnessed the black
day. The statute of Dr. Ambedkar was desecrated with garland of shoes and
chappals. When peaceful protestors were gathered on the eastern express
highway passing through Ramabai Nagar, the police arrived within fifteen
minutes from nowhere. Manohar Kadam, a sub- inspector of the State Reserve
Police Force (SRPF) ordered the firing which had taken place into the
locality that, despite the fact that protestors were on the road, had led
to the killings of eleven local residents, left twenty-six people injured
and each of one of the locality humiliated with undelivered justice even
after seventeen years.

[image: Crowd gathered at conference at Ramabai Nagar to reminiscence the
17th year of the incidence.]
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/94592664@N00/14618147156>
*Crowd gathered at conference at Ramabai Nagar to reminiscence the 17th
year of the incidence.*

‘The Gundewar Commission report- the commission appointed to investigate
the incidence- held Kadam responsible for "straightaway" opening fire
without warning or even attempting to disperse the crowd through other
means’. Manohar Kadam is still not arrested, despite being held guilty for
firing and death of eleven innocent people, enjoying the pension of
government for his public service. Eleven families have lost someone among
them; most of the people who died were in their early twenties or thirties.
Those who were injured went on with their lives. One of them is Milind
Pagare, injured by the blast of teargas shells (expired at the time of
use), who then was around seventeen years of age, now at thirty-four, is
protesting blindfold, seeking justice for victims and the arrest of Manohar
Kadam on his occasional fasts.

[image: Milind Pagare, one of the victims of the massacre, fasting to seek
justice on 11th July 2014]
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/94592664@N00/14454472480>
*Milind Pagare, one of the victims of the massacre, fasting to seek justice
on 11th July 2014*

On the other hand, along with social transitions, political discourse of
and by Dalits have been taken a huge leap. The Shivsena and BJP coalition,
who then was governing Maharashtra, is again formed the government, this
time with full majority in the centre. Meanwhile atrocities against Dalits
have been unabated and often go unnoticed with no heedful recognition
either by state or media. Ironically, infamous killings of Dalits in
‘Laxmanpure Bathe’ and ‘Bathali Tola’ offer an illusion to people about
justice, with the curious acquittal of perpetrators. Khairlanji massacre of
Dalit family in 2006, again in Maharashtra, only cemented the illusion of
justice in atrocity cases against Dalits. Today, in Ramabai Nagar, the
memory of the incidence is fresh and equally haunting. Meanwhile justice to
the victims seems lost into the chaos and fusion of political
reconstruction and allies into the Ramabai Nagar itself.

[image: Newspaper vendor at Ramabai Nagar]
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/94592664@N00/14454728247>
*Newspaper vendor at Ramabai Nagar*

[image: Flex photos of the 11 Dalits who were massacred on 11th July 1997]
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/94592664@N00/14454728507>
*Flex photos of the 11 Dalits who were massacred on 11th July 1997*

The perpetrator of desecration of the statue has never been found. Manohar
Kadam, who had been was given life sentence by session court was succeeded
to acquired bail from high court and had never been into jail custody whose
un-imprisonment is, as Anand Teltumbde recalls, a rude shock for Dalits of
Ramabai Nagar who are still waiting for justice, moreover hoping for it
through their Morchas, Dharanas, fasts and into their conferences of
defending human rights and dignity.