Three men sentenced to death in India for 1981 massacre
A court in India has sentenced three men to death for the murder of 24 people from the Dalit (former untouchable) community in 1981, reports say. BBC.
The accused were part of a gang that shot the victims, including women and children, in the village of Dehuli, in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
The special court said the murders were among the rarest that justify the death penalty in India. KosovaPress.
All the victims were from the Dalit community, which is at the bottom of India's rigid caste hierarchy. After a long period, the victims' relatives welcomed the conviction, but said the decision should have been made earlier.
The crime took place on November 18, 1981, when a group of men in police uniforms attacked the village and started shooting. The sentence was handed down after a lengthy trial that began in 1984 and ended in 2024.
The horrific crime shocked the Dalit community and caused a mass exodus of residents from the village of Dehuli. The surviving villagers have vivid memories of the day of that massacre, describing the horror they witnessed as they and their relatives were mercilessly shot.
After the incident, the local administration sent police forces to secure the village, while similar cases, where the victims are from marginalized communities, continue to drag on for many years before reaching a fair verdict.
