Mumbai: Palghar that grabbed headlines late last year for all the wrong reasons continues to simmer with news trickling from interiors that communalist forces have barred Christian adivasi families from drawing water or collecting firewood to cook food.
The ostracising of Christian adivasis in the tribal taluk of rural Thane district reached its peak on Sunday when a mob raising slogans disrupted a worship service and assaulted worshippers. Delayed reports state that during the attacks at least 25 people, including 10 women and five children, were injured.
The growing belligerence and attacks on adivasis in the region has been conveyed to the state home minister. Talking to Deccan Herald, community activist Joseph Dias said: “ First of all the adivasis are too poor to afford medicare. Moreover, the police, instead of taking action against the culprits, have even refused to register any case.”
However, Dias said Sunday’s incident was not the first of its kind taking place in the region. “On December 30, the Christian adivasi community was threatened with dire consequences. And ironically all this threat business takes place in front of police personnel itself.
“The harassment of adivasis has been on for the past couple of years. Most of them have been facing economic sanctions, social boycott and restriction to practise the religion of their choice in the area. We have come across reports that the hooligans belonging to parochial forces have also barred the adivasis from performing exequies (funeral rites) as per Christian rites.”
The tribal taluk, over 100 km from Mumbai, shot into limelight last November when the police of Palghar town, at the behest of Shiv Sena party workers, in a midnight swoop questioned two college-going girls for posting a comment on a social networking site on Bal Thackeray’s funeral and Mumbai bandh. The girls were later arrested and immediately released on bail following a country-wide protest; the state government also beat a hasty retreat, suspending two officers and transferring the magistrate who had accepted the charges framed by the public prosecutor.