Citizens across the nation are angry. Two women were brutally gang-raped and murdered, and it has sparked massive outrage and protests across India. A 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped by four upper-caste men and killed in Hathras, UP. She was found by her family in the fields, naked, bleeding with multiple fractures and a gash in her tongue. She could not succumb to the injuries and was declared dead on September 29. Just days after this horrifying case, another 22-year-old Dalit woman died after she was gang-raped in UP’s Balrampur. These are yet another brutal cases of rape and injustices towards Dalit women. The silencing of atrocities against the Dalit women has been there for long, and it is high time we all acknowledge it. This is why #DalitLivesMatter tweets have taken over Twitter. Enraged at the rape cases of two Dalit women in UP, social media users initiated online campaigning calling for immediate justice to the victims. Have Sensitive Issues Been Reduced to 'Content' on Social Media? Here's the Point We're Missing When We Shame Others for Not Posting Instagram Stories, Tweets, or Posts About Tragic Events or Horrific Atrocities!

It is too traumatising to write every detail of how the women were raped and killed, which everyone knows by now. The reason, people are stressing not only on rape but also highlighted that it is a caste issue is because this is not the first time a Dalit woman was raped this brutally. This is not the first time when injustice happened towards someone whose gender and caste identity was an accident of fate. Indian society is the casteist to its core, and women have been the worst victim.

There are now reports and photos surfacing on social media that shows upper caste community have allegedly came out in support of the rapists. The district administration in Hathras have banned the entry of the media in Boolgarhi village, where the victim lived. Even the movements of locals was restricted. While nationwide protests are on amid the coronavirus pandemic, people have taken to social media demanding justice for both the victims with #DalitLivesMatter.

Check Tweets:

#DalitLivesMatter

A Caste-Based Violence

Netizens Spread Awareness

Caste-Based Oppression Has to be Fixed!

An Important Poem!

People Demand Justice for the Rape Victims

The rape case is not reductively a heinous crime committed against woman, but also a symptom and a consequence of the caste system. Time and again, we have seen how rape and other forms of sexual violence are used against Dalit women to dehumanise the community and maintain caste-based hierarchies and power relations. The investigations for both the cases are on.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 02, 2020 04:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).