On November 30, most of the Mohanganj area of Gohri village was eerily quiet. Both the Thakurs who dominate this village on the outskirts o...
On November 30, most of the Mohanganj area of Gohri village was eerily quiet. Both the Thakurs who dominate this village on the outskirts of Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj town and the Pasi Dalits who form a minority were shaken by events that had taken place a week earlier.
Four members of a Pasi family – a couple, their 25-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son – were killed in their home on the night of November 23. Police officials have now confirmed that the 25-year-old woman was raped before she was murdered.
After the bodies were discovered on November 25, a series of arrests followed. The relatives of the murdered family named Thakur residents of the village with whom they had a long-standing, often violent, land dispute. The police detained 11 members of Gohri’s Thakur community. Most of the other Thakur men in the village have fled in fear.
“We have had a land dispute with them since 2019,” said an elderly relative of the murdered family, referring to Thakur residents of the village. She added bitterly: “We filed a case against them but the police never did a thing about it. This allowed them to threaten us and beat us up again and again to pressure us...
