Basra Devi was forcibly tonsured and paraded half-naked in the village
by the people despite pleading that she was innocent.

Basra Devi is a Dalit woman, in her mid 50s, of Balua Basanta village
in Vaishali district of Bihar state in India. She was meted out the
humiliating punishment on Saturday (23 rd December 2006).

According to villagers, after she refused to pay a fine her head was
shaved.

“How can I pay a fine when I don’t have enough to eat?” she said.

According to information highlighted in news papers: villagers say
torturing and humiliating Besra Devi was done on orders of Zamindar (land
lord) of the village.

National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) is taking this case of
atrocity on Dalit woman very seriously and organizing a fact finding team.
Soon this team will visit the incident village and will find the facts.
NCDHR will get back with a Fact Finding report shortly.

The link for the relating news is as follows:

http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=26307

National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) is a larger platform of Dalit Activists ,Academician addressing the Human Rights violations of Dalits. This group is one of its advocacy programs to generate appeal and initiate discussion to sensitizing the civil societies and also to hold the state accountable on the violation of Dalits Rights.

Mr. Tanveer Kazi

National Advocacy Secretary

National Campaign On Dalit Human Rights

8/1,2^nd Floor, South Patel Nagar

NEW DELHI-110008 ( INDIA)

Ph/ Fax:- 91-11-25842249/ 25842250

Mobile:- 09350183804 09818933034

Email:- tanveer ncdhr.org

tankazi gmail.com

Website:- www.dalits.org

Dalit woman paraded half-naked for stealing fruit

From Telugu Portal

Patna, Dec 25 (IANS) A middle-aged Dalit woman in Bihar was tonsured and parade half-naked on the orders of the husband of a woman village head for allegedly stealin a few bananas

Basra Devi, in her mid 50s, of Balua Basanta village in Vaishali district was meted out the “punishment” on Saturday.

“I was forcibly tonsured and paraded half-naked in the village by the people despite pleading that I was innocent,” Besra Devi said.

According to villagers, after she refused to pay a fine her head was shaved.
“How can I pay a fine when I don’t have enough to eat?” she said.

Satyanarayan Chaurasia, the landowner husband of the village woman head, has denied torturing and humiliating Besra Devi. “I have nothing to do with it,” he said.

But villagers say it was done on his orders.

A few days ago, some landowners chopped off the fingers of a 10-year-old Dalit girl, Khusbu, for plucking a few leaves of spinach from a vegetable field in a village in Bhagalpur district.

A Dalit youth was beaten and humiliated in public by some powerful people in a village in Muzaffarpur district after he refused to work in a field without wages.

These are a few instances of the predicament of the poorest of the poor in rural Bihar. Most such cases go unreported.