Karnataka: Man arrested for ‘purifying’ water tank with cow urine after Dalit woman touched it  

• The incident occurred on Friday, when some Dalits from Sargur in HD Kote taluk had arrived at the village to attend a wedding
• A local man from the area gathering others and berating the woman
• The locals reportedly emptied out the tank and ‘cleaned’ it with cow urine.

A 62-yearold man, who is said to be a leader of Lingayat community, has been arrested in Karnataka under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for allegedly draining out water from a public tank and “purifying” it with cow urine after a Dalit woman drank water from it. The man, who is a resident of Chamarajanagar district, has been identified as Mahadevappa.

The Chamarajanagar district police yesterday said that they lodged an FIR under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act-2015, after upper-class villagers purified a mini water tank with cow urine.

The woman, Shivamma, drank water on November 18 from the tank in an upper-caste locality in the Heggatora village. Officials rushed to the village to inquire into the matter as a video of the “purification” went viral on social media.

Shivamma, who is from Saragur in HD Kote taluk, on Tuesday told the media she visited Heggatora for a wedding. “After lunch, I had water from the tank before boarding a bus,” she was reported as saying by the Hindustan Times. When she was drinking water, a man asked her about her caste and told her not to drink water after he learnt she was Dalit.

IE Basavaraju, the local tehsildar, was among the officials who visited the village and told villagers the water tank is a public property and everyone could drink water from it. Basavaraju also accompanied over 20 Dalits to public drinking water taps in the village to drink water, reported HT. “There are no other social issues in the village. The people are living in harmony with each other. But there will be some prejudiced people and the accused in this case is one such person. He is the only person involved in this and no one else,” Basavaraju said.