Rajasthan Journalist Booked Under SC/ST Act For Abusing Dalit Worker; Bihar CM Orders Probe

New Delhi: A Rajasthan journalist, Durg Singh Rajpurohit, has been booked under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for allegedly abusing a Dalit from Nalanda forcing the Bihar CM to order a high-level probe into the case.

The CM has asked M Hasnain Khan, Inspector General (IG) of Police for Patna Zone, to launch an investigation to get to the bottom of the matter.

The case relates to an FIR filed by one Rakesh Paswan, who has said that he worked in Rajpurohit’s house in Barmer where the latter abused him using casteist slurs. The FIR claims that Paswan left Barmer to go back to his home in Bihar on May 15, subsequently Rajpurohit followed him to convince him to come back. Rajpurohit, it is alleged, came with a group of people and had Paswan beaten up.

However, new facts have put a question mark over the whole case. Paswan, the complainant in the case, has now gone missing. This comes ahead of Rajpurohit’s bail hearing.

Paswan is a resident of Tetua village in Nalanda district. His father Dasrath Paswan told News18, “Ever since this case has gone public, my son has left the village and gone missing. My son has never been to Rajasthan nor has he filed any such case.”

He added, “My son worked as a servant for Digha-based businessman Sanjay Paswan. He is said to be a big sand businessman. He had got my son’s signature on some paper, I don’t know what it was.”

Rajpurohit’s father had a different story to narrate.

“My son has spent his entire life in Barmer. Neither I nor my son know any Sanjay Singh or Rakesh Paswan. This is all very shocking to me. My son has no connection with Patna whatsoever. One day, Barmer police picked him up and took him to Patna by road. There, they handed him over to Bihar Police. That was when I got to know about this case,” said Rajpurohit’s father Guman Singh.

According to the arrest warrant, a copy of which is with News18, a case was registered against Durg Singh on July 9. On August 20, Rajpurohit was brought to Patna. On August 22, he was sent to 14 days’ judicial custody.