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PAGE 1 ANCHOR Khairlanji survivor is a lonely outsider as Dalit groups fight Vivek Deshpande Posted online: Saturday, September 29, 2007 at 0000 hrs Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange was the rallying point of Dalit organisations, today he is not even invited to their rallies. BHANDARA, SEPTEMBER 28: A year ago, he was the rallying point for the deeply divided Dalit groups of Maharashtra. As Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange revisits his Khairlanji village tomorrow to pay homage to his wife Surekha, daughter Priyanka and sons Sudhir and Roshan, killed by a mob on the same day last year, he is a lonely outsider. Bhaiyyalal has not been invited to a rally in Bhandara, the district headquarters, organised by Dalit leader Shyamdada Gaikwad. Nor will he be in Nagpur, where the Khairlanji Action Committee has organised a shraddhanjali rally to be attended by CPM leader Brinda Karat and Prakash Ambedkar. Bhaiyyalal will first visit Khairlanji and later Deulgaon, where his in-laws stay, to return to Warthi, where he has been staying with local NCP Dalit leader Dilip Uke. So sharp are the divisions among the Dalit protestors that they don't see eye-to eye today. Rajan and and Siddharth Gajbhiye, with whom Bhaiyyalal addressed his first post-Khairlanji press conference under the aegis of the Khairlanji Action Committee, are today the target of his wrath. "Siddharth is responsible for what happened to my family. I had warned him not to come to the village so often, but he didn't listen. Now, he and Rajan go to Mumbai, Delhi and everywhere and use my name to become leaders," Bhaiyyalal says hurling expletives. "If the villagers would have found him, my family would haven't been killed. And now how they are telling the media they are the eye-witnesses?" he asks. The Khairlanji Action Committee blames Uke for appropriating Bhaiyyalal and "brainwashing" him. Uke says his being NCP leader has nothing to do with his solidarity with Bhaiyyalal. "He is a Dalit and that's why I am with him," he says. "I don't have any axe to grind like many of his relatives. All have an eye on his money," he alleges. Convenor of Khairlanji Action Committee Milind Pakhale says, "True, Bhaiyyalal had become a rallying point but is no more one. I am also confronted with this question and have no ready answers to give." Republican leader Prakash Ambedkar, however, says: "There was never a sense of unity in the Khairlanji protests. I never had any such illusions. For tomorrow's occasion, we have appealed to all Dalits to congregate before the Ambedkar statue and pay their respects to the victims. What Bhaiyyalal says about anyone isn't an issue before us at this moment. We are now concentrating on the legal case and waiting for justice," he says. Siddharth Gajbhiye, a police patil from the neighbouring Dhusala village was Bhotmange's family friend. Owner of 50 acres, he would employ people from surrounding villages on his farm. Early in September last year, he had a tiff with a landless labourer. Siddharth had allegedly beaten him up, resulting in anger among villagers, some of whom thrashed him severely. Bhaiyyalal's wife Surekha and daughter Priyanka had testified before the police against the alleged assaulters, who were arrested. When they got bail, they set out to teach Siddharth a lesson. When they couldn't find him, they returned to the village and vented their ire at the Bhotmanges. While Bhaiyyalal fled the spot after seeing the mob, his family was wiped off in the attack, leading to nationwide outrage and Dalit protests. Then, everybody seemed to be reaching out to Bhaiyyalal. The government rushed in with aid, cash and kind, worth over Rs 13 lakh and the job of a security guard in a government school for Rs 5,000 a month. Two days before the incident's anniversary, on Wednesday, the government gave him a house in Bhandara. Now, no one comes to visit Bhaiyyalal. "I know how I am living," he says. He hasn't yet thought about beginning his life afresh. "That's for later. First, I want to see all the killers hanged," he says. He isn't happy with the "slow" pace of the case in a fast-track court in Bhandara. There have been 24 days of hearing so far, covering only 12 of the total 78 witnesses. "They should be completing at least 4-5 witnesses in a month. I had demanded a special court that would have been able to do that. The government hasn't given it," he complains.
