31, Jul 2015

It was here on July 28 that a mob lynched Lalua alias Shyam, a Dalit, for allegedly raping and killing a 12-year-old upper caste girl Lali.
Written by MAYURA JANWALKAR | Parkham/ Agra | Updated: July 31, 2015 8:50 am
Empty Dalit houses in Mathura’s Parkham village after the murder of a 12 year-old girl. (Source: Express photo by Gajendra Yadav)
The Valmiki Basti in Parkham village, about 10 km from the Mathura refinery in western Uttar Pradesh, has been a ghost town for the last three days.
At the front is the house of Lalua with household items lying strewn across the floor and cots turned upside down — with no people to drive them away, chickens and dogs have laid claim to everything inside.
It was here on July 28 that a mob lynched Lalua alias Shyam, a Dalit, for allegedly raping and killing a 12-year-old upper caste girl Lali. Sonu, the other man that the mob attacked that day, is lying on a hospital bed in Agra with both his legs and an arm covered in bandages. “It was Lalua, I did no wrong,” he said.
Today, the tension in the village is so high that about 20 families living in the basti have fled their homes fearing for their safety. And the Parkham railway station, where the girl was last seen talking to Lalua and which acted as a border on each side of which the Thakurs and the Valmikis lived, is now guarded by about 20 to 25 armed policemen deployed to keep peace.