A Dalit woman was found dead on Saturday after breaking up with her boyfriend, who had posed himself as a Dalit first, but later turned out to be a Muslim, in Wankaner of Gujarat’s Morbi district.

The victim, identified as Rinku Solanki (21), was found dead in a roadside tea and snacks stall, owned by Sultan Baloch, a relative of her boyfriend Samir Baloch.

In his statement to police, Rinku’s father Dahya Solanki said that Samir had befriended Rinku while posing as a Dalit youth. However, after she came to know that Samir was a Muslim, she broke up with him. Yet, Samir continued to harass her by threatening her. Rinku came to know about Samir’s religious identity after Samir’s engagement with a Muslim woman.

Rinku used to work as a clerk at a private doctor’s clinic. After her duty hours were over, she hired a rickshaw and went to the tea stall to meet Samir. What happened later is not clear.

Dahya Solanki says that his daughter was strangled to death, while Samir’s family claims that she committed suicide. When police reached the spot, they did not find Samir but his family members over there. They had laid down Rinku’s body on a cot and told police that she had committed suicide.

Police has sent her body for forensic postmortem to Rajkot Civil Hospital, the report of which is being awaited.

“Only after the PM report comes out, will it be ascertained whether Rinku was murdered or she had committed suicide. Meanwhile, we have launched a manhunt for Samir,”said R P Jadeja, sub-inspector of Wankaner city police station. He added that it is yet to be investigated as to what Samir’s family members were doing at the crime spot. 

Instances of Hindu Dalit girls being lured or assaulted by Muslim men are reported with sickening frequency from all parts of the country. For instance, few months back an 18-year-old Dalit girl from Muzaffarnagar, UP was shot dead by 2 Muslim men in front of her parents after she broke up with one of the men.

But the activists and politicians who claim to be pro-Dalit are always found missing whenever such crimes occur. They prop up only in cases like the Una flogging where Dalits are victims of crimes committed by other Hindus.

While lower-level leadership of Dalit & ‘secular’ parties like BSP understands the ground situation and at least stand in solidarity with their community members like in this recent case from Meerut UP where villagers protested against minor Dalit girls being lured away by Muslim youth, the top-level leaders like Jignesh Mevani, Mayawati and Rahul Gandhi are conspicuously absent due to Muslim vote-bank considerations.

When Dalit girl was killed in UP, Mevani did Casteism & Bhim Sena threatened for Bharat Bandh. Later it was revealed- Murderer was her cousin

Now Dalit girl has hung herself in Gujarat after knowing that her lover, who was disguised as Dalit, is actually Muslim

Where is Mevani?

— Anshul Saxena (@AskAnshul) January 8, 2019

Such is the bias in mainstream media, which otherwise portrays the accuser’s perspective as unvarnished truth as we saw in the Kathua case, that Times of India has carried the sanitized version that Rinku Solanki  ‘committed suicide’ in their headline, despite the father’s suspicion that his daughter was strangled, her post-mortem report not being available and prime accused Samir Baloch absconding.

Did you find this article useful? We’re a non-profit. Make a donation and help pay for our journalism.