Right after the Yogi Puram police chowki on the Meerut Bypass Road (National Highway 58), a narrow lane juts into Shobhapur village. A Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) van is stationed where the lane begins. A little further down is Gopi Pariya’s house. Blamed for the violence which took place on the highway during the Dalit Bharat Bandh on April 2, Gopi Pariya was marked as “arsonist number 1” in a purported WhatsApp list. Two days later he was shot dead. The UP police accused four Gujjar men of Gopi’s murder and arrested them.

A little over 70km from New Delhi—a two-and-a-half-hour drive—Shobhapur in UP’s Meerut district is among several villages in the state where the Dalit community feels under siege following the protests against the alleged dilution of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

 “SC (Scheduled Caste) hona sharap hai kya?” Manohar Singh, a Shobhapur villager, who just lives two houses away from Gopi’s residence, asks if it’s a curse to be a Dalit. He doesn’t feel the question warrants a reply.

“Humare ladke jail mien hain, humein koi raasta dikhai nahi de raha,” another villager, Rajiv Ranjan, 39, says. “Our boys are in jail. We don’t see a way out. No politician is coming forward to support us, speak on our behalf. If we continue to feel so helpless being Hindus, the entire Dalit community will have to convert to Islam.”

The dreaded WhatsApp list

There is a list doing the rounds on WhatsApp, they add. Someone has compiled a list of people responsible for the violence. The Gopi’s name, who was shot dead on April 4, was on the top of that list. But it’s a list on WhatsApp. That Gopi was on that list and was shot down may just be a tragic coincidence. If that were the case, why do the first information reports (FIRs) filed by the police feature the same names, they ask.

The cops stationed at the Shobhapur police chowki say Dalit protestors put up blockades at three places between the chowki and the Kankarkheda flyover on NH-58 on April 2. The chowki and the vehicles parked there were set on fire.

“From the videos we collected, there were at least 20-30 youths from Shobhapur village who were involved,” an inspector said. A bus was first vandalised and set on fire. The photographs from the day show heavy damage to public and private property.

But the WhatsApp list—allegedly compiled by the non-Dalits of Shobhapur and surrounding areas—contains 92 names. Eighty-three of those names, including Gopi’s, are from Shobhapur. Gopi’s younger sibling, Prasant, has the list. It reached him through a WhatsApp group on the morning of April 4, a few hours before his elder brother was shot. Prasant says he is Target No 5.

Where was Gopi Pariya shot?

Gopi, like many other Dalit men, had been staying away from home since the violence on April 2. “My brother had come home to eat and change his clothes,” Gopi’s younger sister, Pinki, says. “We were upstairs when he left. Sunil [Gujjar] had come to call him.”

His father, Tarachand, said Gopi left with two friends of his to meet Manoj Gujjar around 4 in the evening.

A little while later, the sound of gunfire reverberated across the village. “Fix-six rounds of bullets.” Word spread soon of Gopi being shot dead.

Manoj Gujjar, Sunil Gujjar, Kapil Rana and Ashish Gujjar have been accused of murdering Gopi.

Gopi met Manoj and Kapil near the Purana Shiv Mandir. The Shiv temple is situated right in front of Kapil’s house.  That’s where the bullets were allegedly fired. Gopi’s sister, Pinky, alleges her brother named his assailants to the police before taking his last breath.

“Manoj is a history-sheeter and even Ashish has cases against them. Many of these cases have been filed the under SC/ST Atrocities Act,” Prasant told Newslaundry. His father alleged the murder was premeditated. They wanted to silence a youth who used to lead Dalits from the village, he says. “My son used to lead the Dalits and help them, hence he was on their hit list. The planned and executed this murder to eliminate my son,” Tarachand says.

Tarachand and Gopi were Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders. Tarachand says he’s contested the local body polls thrice. Gopi, he says, tried to contest the last municipal body polls on a BSP ticket. Dalits and specifically Jatav community form the majority vote bank in this village. It’s more a satellite township where 10,000 people live and not so much a village in the real sense. Gopi, who ran a badminton assembling unit, wielded strong influence on the Dalit youth. His family owns a two-floor house–quite swanky for Shobhapur—and an “open jeep”.

Gopi Pariya’s posters are visible in the Dalit mohallas of Shobhapur

Gujjars, on the other hand, are a minority in the village—just two families, in fact, the Bainslas and the Chapranas. While Manoj and Sushil Gujjar come from the Bainsla family, Ashish and Kapil are Chapranas.

The mohallas in the village are divided along caste lines. While the Gujjars and the Muslims, who are Shobhapur’s second biggest community, live together, the Brahmins and the Vaishyas live in separate mohallas.

Like many villages in UP, caste differences didn’t always define the politics here. Shobhapur once elected a Gujjar–the wife of Manoj’s nephew, Priyanka—as its councillor. Helping her in the campaign was Tarachand himself, who ensured his Jatav community voted for her.

The “other side” of the story

Meerut’s Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and investigative officer in the case, Pankaj Kumar Singh, told Newslaundry, “All four accused in the case have been arrested and have been sent to jail.” He further added, “Two of the accused – Ashish and Manoj – were history-sheeter and had cases of attempt to murder and small crimes registered against them.”

While some claim that mobilisation amongst non-Dalits against Shobhapur’s Dalit protestors started from the night of April 2, the families of the accused deny attending any such meetings. Kapil Rana’s family, for one, shares a completely different version of the murder. “It was Gopi who had come to kill my brother,” Kapil’s brother, Suraj Singh, 32, told Newslaundry. “My brother was tending to the cows in the evening when Gopi came with his two friends. They were carrying weapons. Gopi shot at Kapil but he managed to duck and thrust Manoj onto Gopi, forcing the pistol off his hands.”

Manoj Gujjar and Kapil Rana allegedly shot Gopi outside the village’s Purana Shiv Mandir

It was then that “Manoj picked up the pistol and shot Gopi”, Suraj claims. Ashish and Sunil were not even present at the time of the crime, he adds. “Only Manoj and Kapil were there,” Suraj says.

Manoj’s elder brother, Ombir Singh, 65, says it was Gopi’s behaviour that got him into trouble. “Uss ladke ka swabhav theek nahi tha. (That man’s behaviour was not good.) He would try and take lead in all matters. He would fight, roam around with four-five boys in tow,” Ombir says.

Bobby Gujjar, Manoj’s nephew and former councillor Priyanka’s husband, says the real motive behind the murder will be revealed once the investigation is over.

Manoj and Kapil didn’t even share a good bond, Bobby says. “I fail to understand one thing—those who don’t even speak to one another properly, how can they come together to execute a murder? I smell a larger political conspiracy in this murder,” he adds.

Kapil’s elder brother says if “Manoj had not been at the spot, Gopi would have killed my brother”. Gopi was disgruntled with his name featuring in the FIRs and the WhatsApp list, he says, and that is why “he wanted to shoot my brother”.

Meanwhile, the police, too, seem to be going by this version. “It has been established during the investigation that Gopi and the accused, Manoj, had a history of disputes,” DSP Manoj Kumar Singh told Newslaundry. “It doesn’t seem like a murder triggered by caste violence.”

The police officer also said that different sources had suggested that it was “Gopi who called Manoj and tried to shoot them”. “But this is not my version,” he quickly clarifies. “This is what I have been hearing on the ground.”

The police feel the murder had more to do with a struggle for dominance. “Iss murder kaa uss lafde se [the April 2 protests] se koi lena nahi tha. This murder did not have anything to do with the April 2 protests,” the DSP says. Ye barchaswa ki ladaai thi (It was a result of a power struggle between the victim and the accused.”)

Kapil Rana, it’s worth remembering, had spoken to India TV on April 3 on how Dalits “arsonists” wanted to establish their dominance and therefore had ransacked the market and set vehicles on fire. Gopi was shot dead the next day.

Kapil Rana, one of the four accused, speaking to India TV a day before the murder

India TV, in a report that was broadcasted a day before Gopi’s murder, had “exposed” Gopi and two other men as “rioters”. The channel termed them as the one responsible for “setting the city on fire”. The channel also targeted the BSP, holding the party’s former legislator and Shobhapur councillor Amit Rao responsible for the “anarchy” on April 2.

What’s shocking is India TV chose to flash the list of arsonists along with pictures of Gopi and one Arun Kumar – without knowing who had made the list and what was the intent behind it.

Based on the list, the channel called Gopi “a local strongman” and the main accused in the rioting case.

The Dalits are afraid

A sense of fear pervades Dalit households, even a week after the April 2 Bharat Bandh. They fear a police crackdown. “After the youth received this fake list on their mobile phones, it triggered a panic. When people left the village due to this list, they took advantage of the situation and murdered our child [Gopi],” 39-year-old Bharat Bhushan Bodh told Newslaundry.

The people, who are talking to us outside Gopi’s house, say they don’t know who could have made the list. But they suspect, it’s an insider. It mentions many details and even people’s nicknames.  Additional details have been given about names slotted at number 12, 14, 16 and 60 to weed out any possibility of confusion.

The purported list of arsonists include 83 names from Shobhapur

“We have heard that people from non-Dalit communities, such as Brahmins and Vaishyas, met and have prepared it,” Bodh said. The Dalits claim that the meeting was called on the evening of April 2 and 3 inside a private school. Others disagree.

Bobby Gujjar, the nephew of the main accused, says that a bunch of upper caste people did try to hold a meeting at the school on April 3. “But we clearly told them that we wanted peace in the village and that Gujjar families would not take part.”

While Meerut SSP Manzil Saini declined to comment on Gopi’s murder, Kankarkheda police station in-charge, Deepak Sharma said, the police trying to find the person/people who had prepared the list which seems to mention names mentioned in police FIRs later.

The three FIRs filed on the April 2 violence, and accessed by Newslaundry, name 125, 90 and 89 people respectively. Many of them are from Shobhapur. The name of Gopi’s brother Prasant features both on the WhatsApp list and the police FIR.  The police have slapped 16 sections of the Indian Penal Code against Anuj, the son of Moolchand Pariya. His name is no 10 on the WhatsApp list.

But the police dub it as a mere “coincidence”. “We have our own sources and many accused were arrested from the spot [on April 2],” DSP Singh says. “The FIRs have been lodged based on the information collected from our sources. It may be a mere coincidence that a few names from Shobhapur match with what’s on the list.”

Fear in nearby villages

The villages on NH-58 near Shobhapur—Dhobka, Dayampur, Mohammadpur and Lagkhwaya—also have sizeable Dalit populations and are major influencers in local polls. While Dhobka remains peaceful, the Dalits in Dayampur are living under the fear of police arrest. Rajibir Singh’s elder brother, Lakhan Singh, and Omprakash’s 24-year-old son, Deepak Kumar, were arrested by the police on April 2. “Even though we have not fled from the village, the fear remains. Rumours keep doing the rounds that the police are going to raid the village – and the young men start running towards the forest,” says Yogendra Singh, 28. Yogendra’s name also features in an FIR, the one lodged by the Kankarkheda police station.

PAC is deployed in the village ever since Gopi’s murder

No exodus

A few Hindi news channels have gone on to report that Dalits from Shobhapur are fleeing from the village. While one cannot discount the overriding sense of insecurity and fear in the air, dear news channels, it certainly can’t be termed as “palayan”. The women are staying back in their households. So are the men not named in the FIR or the WhatsApp list. Some men who are named in the list leave the village only after sunset.  “As the sun sets, men from our households leave the village. My husband has not returned since April 2. Na phone aaya hai, na koi jaankaari mili hai (He has not even called me. I am clueless about his whereabouts),” 35-year-old Sheela Devi says, wiping her tears. Women of the house huddle together in the evenings. Even though they fear for their own safety, they must stay to guard their homes, they say.

But comparing this to an exodus would be an exaggeration, and adding unnecessary fuel to the fire that is raging at the moment.

‘Where is the SC/ST commission?’

Gopi’s father, Tarachand, has demanded action against all the five accused. “I seek justice and want no compensation for my family,” he says. “The only righteous compensation for Gopi’s murder would be for the police to immediately remove names of Dalit youths wrongly framed in the rioting case.”

Criticising the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said that neither the local BJP MP, Kunwar Bharatendra Singh, nor BJP MLAs from Meerut have visited the mourning family yet. Tarachand was much pained by the SC/ST commission too. “Where are the members of the SC/ST commission? A Dalit youth has been shot dead. Don’t they feel the need to wake up and meet us? Have they forgotten what their role is,” he asks.

Images: Amit Bhardwaj