A 55-year-old man was lynched and killed by municipality employees in Pratapgarh in Rajasthan today when he tried to prevent them from taking photographs of women defecating in the open.
The incident took place early the morning near Bagwasa Kachi basti area when Zafar Khan, a social worker, tried to stop civic officials, who were out to shame the women of the district, from taking photographs and videos.
The municipality workers kicked, punched and beat Khan, causing his death, according to the FIR filed by Khan’s elder brother Noor Mohammad.
“When we heard about the attack, we rushed him to the hospital where he was declared brought dead,” Noor, told Hindustan Times.
Noor has lodged a complaint against Kamal Harijan, Ritesh Harijan, Manish Harijan, Nagar Parishad commissioner Ashok Jain and others, after which the police registered a case of murder, the Pratapgarh police said.
Pratapgarh superintendent of police Shivraj Meena said, “We are getting the matter investigated and a case has been registered against the four named accused in the FIR.”
Qayoom, Khan’s nephew, told HT that there were no toilets in the slum where he was killed, and Khan had been demanding for a long time that the district administration build toilets in the area.
Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje had said that her government was committed to making the state open defecation free by 2017.
In a review meeting of the panchayat raj department at the end of last month, officials informed Raje that 58 lakh toilets had been constructed in the state in the last three and a half years under the government’s Swachh Bharat mission, and 4,973 of the state’s 9,891 gram panchayats were declared open defecation free.
