By Abhimanyu:
Manual scavengers and Dalit activists from all across India held a protest march at Jantar Mantar in Delhi under their 125 days long nationwide #BhimYatra, that ended on April 13th, on the eve of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary.
With so many manual scavengers losing their lives because of the inhumanity of forcing them to enter and clean out septic tanks, protestors at Jantar Mantar burnt a symbolic septic tank to assert their demand to scrap the manual scavenging profession in its entirety, so as to avoid any further deaths of individuals performing such work.
They also demanded complete modernisation and mechanisation of the sanitation system in India.
Through the Bhim Yatra, they hope to send a message to the government of India and people at large of this country about how this inhuman practice that destroys their lives, needs to end.
Protestors set fire to containers representing septic tanks cleaning which manual scavengers have and continue to lose their lives even today.
Women who have lost members of their families to deaths in septic tanks stand in protest at the Bhim Yatra, Jantar Mantar.
Pinki, Khushboo and Asha – three women from U.P. whose husbands died while cleaning septic tanks – demand justice at the Bhim Yatra.
Translation: We’ll put an end to the practic of manual scavenging.
A container representing a septic tank on fire.
125 families whose loved ones have died while cleaning septic tanks were protesting at Jantar Mantar as well. Out of these 125, here is a list of 80 individuals who lost their lives because of manual scavenging.
[su_spoiler title=”Maharashtra” icon=”arrow”]Vicky Sunil Valmiki
Manoj Graokar
Balu
Pravesh Ramteke
Sunil Nekram Valmiki
Suresh
Katalu
Sheru
Gopi
Suresh[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Tamil Nadu” icon=”arrow”]Kannan
Ravi
Krishnayya
Yacob
Malakundaya
Moses
Antony Raj
Babu
Karthik[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Karnataka” icon=”arrow”]Chinna Swamy
Ranga Swami
Laxammana[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Andhra Pradesh” icon=”arrow”]Madhu
Venkanna
Chandrashekhar Kamayya
Raju
Jai Hind
Narsayya
Ramulu[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Uttar Pradesh” icon=”arrow”]Pawan
Nanhe
Mahinder
Devinder
Atar Singh
Vijender
Narender
Manoj
Suresh
Anil
Bablu
Chanadan Balmiki
Dinesh
Rahul
Pappu
Dhiraj
Shafdar Ali
Afsar Ali
Ramesh
Mukesh[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Punjab” icon=”arrow”]Inder kumar
Pinku
Sheeshpal
Ramesh
Joginder[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Chandigarh” icon=”arrow”]Asharfi
Dhan singh
Prem Pal
Jaipal
Happy
Satbeer[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Bihar” icon=”arrow”]Monoj Mallick
Jai prakash Mallick
Suresh Harijan
Moti Chand Dom
Lallan Ram[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Haryana” icon=”arrow”]Anil
Sajjan Kumar
Sanjay
Rajender[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Uttarakhand” icon=”arrow”]Rakesh
Akshay
Ashish
Vikas
Rakesh[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Rajasthan” icon=”arrow”]Vicky
Harbhajan
Vijay raj[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Madhya Pradesh” icon=”arrow”]Akhilesh
Bablu
Rajkumar
Pappu
Nilesh Sukhram Ghawari
Sobhran Balmiki[/su_spoiler]