A Dalit migrant labourer from Chhattisgarh was allegedly beaten to death by a group of people after being mistaken for Bangladeshi national in Kerala’s Palakkad district, reports The Hindu.
The incident has sparked outrage and fear among migrant workers in the region.
The deceased has been identified as Ramnarayan Baghel (31), a resident of Karhi village in Sakti district, Chhattisgarh.
He had travelled to Palakkad on December 13 in search of work and was employed as a daily-wage labourer at a construction site.
According to his relative Kishan Baghel, who lives in Karhi village, Ramnarayan had gone to Kerala at the request of Shashikant Baghel, a distant relative from the same village.
“Ramnarayan was extremely poor and is survived by his wife Lalita and two young sons, aged around eight and nine,” Kishan said.
Rights activists demand ₹25 lakh compensation
Human rights activists have alleged that there is a deliberate attempt to trivialise the brutal mob lynching of Ram Narayan, a migrant worker from Chhattisgarh, at Walayar in Palakkad, and demanded that the crime be officially recorded as mob lynching. They also demanded that ₹25 lakh be paid as compensation to the victim’s family and that the State government bear the expenses for transporting the body to his native place.
Addressing a protest meeting in Thrissur on Saturday, activists said that Kerala’s collective conscience had been deeply scarred by the spread of communal hatred.
“The virus of communalism has entered Kerala’s public mind. This is a frightening reality,” they said.
Example of racial hatred
Writer and Gandhian thinker K. Aravindakshan said the Walayar incident was the second mob lynching in the “so-called civilised Kerala” and described it as a stark example of racial hatred and social exclusion.
Referring to a video that showed the mob assaulting Ram Narayan asking if he was from Bangladesh, Mr. Aravindakshan said, “This is a clear case of Islamophobia spreading rapidly in Kerala and of religious intolerance propagated by the Sangh Parivar.”
He added that the victim was a Dalit youth who had come to Kerala in search of work from Chhattisgarh, where Adivasis were often branded as extremists and driven out.
“That such a brutal killing could happen here and that only a handful have spoken out against it is deeply disturbing. Kerala today seems to be a place where dialogue itself has become impossible,” he said, criticising the silence of civil society and prominent writers.
Severe violence
Thrissur Government Medical College Hospital doctor Hithesh Shankar, who conducted the post-mortem examination, revealed the extreme brutality of the attack. There was not a single point on Ram Narayan’s body that was free of injury—from his fingers to his skull. His ribs were shattered, spine was broken, and most of the injuries were caused by blows with sticks. He was beaten even after death, the doctor said.
“I have conducted more than 10,000 post-mortem, but I have never seen a body subjected to such severe violence.”
The post-mortem report said the cause of death was severe head injury.
Human rights activist Gopinath described the killing as “a Sangh Parivar-led act of mob violence that reflects the growing Islamophobia in Kerala.”
He said, “when a man who does not even know the language is beaten to death, the most painful truth is that he may not have even understood why he was being killed. This shows how the politics of hatred operates.”
Activists alleged that the authorities were trying to portray the Walayar incident as an ordinary crime. “This is unquestionably a mob lynching, and it should be recorded as such. Only then will Ram Narayan get justice,” they said, demanding that a special investigation team be constituted to probe the case.
They also condemned the police for allegedly collecting ambulance charges from the victim’s relatives when the body was brought from Walayar to Thrissur for post-mortem examination and for asking the family to bear the cost of taking the body home. “The government should pay ₹25 lakh as compensation and bear the expense of transporting the body to Chhattisgarh,” activists insisted.
“He left for the railway station on December 17. We came to know about his death only on December 18 when the Walayar police called me,” Mr Sasikanth said, adding that the deceased had his name and address with him.
Ram Narayan’s wife, mother and children have since travelled from Chhattisgarh to Kerala.
Human rights activists and family members have made it clear that they will not allow the body to be taken home unless the case is officially registered as mob lynching and adequate compensation is announced, insisting that the State should take responsibility for both justice and dignity in death.
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