The Gujarat Police on Friday claimed that the attack on a 17-year-old Dalit teenager for allegedly keeping moustache was fake and not genuine. In a press note, the police claimed that the attack was staged to garner publicity.
The 17-year-old Dalit teenager had alleged that some upper-caste youths beat him up for keeping a moustache. However, the police claimed that he had got a wound inflicted on himself with the help of two friends, who are also minors, to garner publicity.
“I was not attacked by anybody. I inflicted the injury myself with the help of friends just like that,” the Dalit teenager told Hindustan Times. The boy also added that he was not under any pressure or threat.
“We also questioned his two friends and their parents who said they slashed their friend’s back on his insistence,” Gandhinagar superintendent of police Virendra Singh was quoted as saying by HT.
The Dalit teenager, however, claimed that two earlier reports of attacks on Dalit men for sporting moustache, including one on his own cousin, were true.
