Minister roughed up over rape comments
Women vent ire after unsolicited remarks
Mumbai: Aggrieved Dalit (lower caste) women agitators manhandled Maharashtra Minister for Water Supply and Sanitation Laxman Dhobale at Nagpur, after he advised them against “wasting their time” staging protests for rape victims.
The minister earned the wrath of an irate group of women belonging to Dalit communities, when he said at a conference: “There is no use in victim woman and her family members resorting to an agitation after the rape. It won’t serve any purpose. Instead, the family should provide higher education to the child of raped woman and make him or her a judge so that he can provide justice to his or her mother.”
Dhoble, who is a minister from the ruling Nationalist Congress Party, was on Sunday speaking at a literary conference held in the memory of late social reformer and progressive Dalit writer Annabhau Sathe, at Nagpur.
Dhoble also ticked off the Dalit women present at the conference, by saying: “If the rape victim woman or family members need any money, I am ready to help financially.”
The remarks, made by Dhoble, during the course of his speech, enraged scores of lower-caste women present at the literary conference so much that they encircled him soon after he stepped out of the conference venue and roughed him up. They also hurled abuses at him for hurting their sentiments, through his “unsolicited” advice.
As the minister tried to wriggle himself out of the crowd of women protesters, some of the women also hit him with their footwear on his back. The minister virtually ran and sat in his official vehicle. As the minister’s official vehicle moved past them, the women threw their footwear at the vehicle – much to Dhoble’s embarrassment.
On their part, the conference chairman Eknath Awhad and convenor Netaji Rajgadkar confirmed that the minister handed out “unwarranted” and “unpalatable” advice to the Dalit women present at the event.
Dhoble has chosen to play down the incident, saying the aggrieved women did raise slogans again him. “What happened was a part of conspiracy against me,” he said.
