A Special Court under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in Veraval in Gujarat’s Gir Somnath district on Tuesday sentenced five men to five years’ imprisonment in the 2016 Una flogging case, in which four members of a Dalit family were assaulted. The court also imposed a fine of ₹5,000 on each of the convicts.
The verdict follows Monday’s order of the Special Court which found five of the accused guilty and acquitted 35 others. Proceedings against a police constable named in the case were closed following his death, while the trial of a juvenile accused is still underway. Those sentenced in the case are Ramesh Jadhav, Rakesh Joshi, Nagji Vaniya, Pramodgiri Goswami, and Balwatgiri Goswami.
The incident occurred on July 11, 2016, when more than 40 men from the upper-caste Darbar community allegedly attacked four members of the Sarvaiya family in Mota Samadhiyala village near Una. The Sarvaiyas, who traditionally worked as leather tanners, were skinning a dead cow when they were assaulted by the group, which accused them of slaughtering the animal.
During the assault, the four Sarvaiya brothers were stripped, tied to a vehicle, and beaten with sticks and iron rods. Some of the attackers recorded videos of the incident on their mobile phones. The accused, who described themselves as “cow vigilantes”, allegedly whipped the youths.
