When dignity of a Himachali Dalit boy is locked in a cowshed

IN mid-September 2025, Limbda village in Rohru subdivision of Shimla district witnessed an atrocity that breaks the myth of Himachal Pradesh being a serene, caste-free oasis among the Indian states. A 12-year-old boy from the Koli community (Scheduled Caste) was accused of "polluting" an upper-caste Rajput woman's house simply by entering it in search of someone to help in a shop. Demanding that his family offer a goat for sacrifice to purify her house, the woman locked him in a cowshed and allegedly beat him brutally. Fearing his family could not fulfil her demand, the boy escaped, but later consumed pesticide and died.