Two children beaten to death in India for defecating in public
- Two men arrested for attacking victims, who are from country’s lowest social caste and did not have toilet at home
- PM Narendra Modi launched the Clean India Mission in 2014, aiming to end open-air defecation in India
Two children were beaten to death in India for defecating in the open, police said on Thursday, underlining the violence sometimes unleashed to enforce Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship cleanliness drive.
The children from the Dalit community, India’s lowest social caste previously known as “untouchables”, were on their way to their grandfather’s house in the Shivpuri district in the central state of Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday.
“It was early morning and they had stopped to attend to nature’s call” when they were attacked, police inspector general Raja Babu Singh said on the phone. “The kids were taken to the hospital but they succumbed to their injuries.”
Two brothers had been arrested, one of whom appeared to be “mentally unsound”, Singh added.
Modi is set to declare India free of open-air defecation on Wednesday, coinciding with the 150th birthday of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, who also campaigned vigorously for better sanitation.
Modi, currently in his second term, launched his pet Clean India Mission in 2014, promising to build toilets for all by 2019. His government says it has built more than 100 million toilets, particularly in rural areas, a major public health issue in the country of 1.3 billion people.