Members of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes and nomadic tribes among others staged a morcha on Thursday to condemn the rape on a four-year-old girl by a middle-aged man on Se
Members of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes and nomadic tribes among others staged a morcha on Thursday to condemn the rape on a four-year-old girl by a middle-aged man on September 14.
Banjara leader MLC Haribhau Rathod, who had initiated the morcha, was indisposed but People’s Republican Party leader MLC Prof Joginder Kawade came along with his supporters.
The morcha began from Nandur Naka area of Nashik off Aurangabad Road, at 1 pm and traversed 4km to the revenue commissioner’s office on Nashik Road area at 4.30 pm amidst rains. Here, a memorandum was given to revenue commissioner Eknath Dawale.
Speaking to the agitators, Mr Kawade said that the group was not opposed to reservations but urged the Maratha community not to press for the removal of atrocity laws.
Assistant sub-inspector K.J. Shinde said that about 1,000 persons had participated the morcha and MLC Rathod did not attend. “Some of the agitators had come in vehicles from Nanded, Parbhani and Jalna,” he said.
Though the number of attendees was relatively low, this was perhaps the first counter morcha staged by a different community. The OBC, SC, ST, NT combined are possibly equal in numbers to the Marathas and some are opposed to Maratha reservations.
The OBC communities are likely to stage a massive morcha to show their strength in Nashik on November 3.
The Maratha community under the aegis of Maratha Kranti Morcha (MKM) has been staging morchas in every district in Maharashtra to condemn the Khopardi rape-murder case in which an upper caste girl was the victim of Dalit perpetrators. On Thursday, a massive MKM was staged in Amravati.
