The 15-page chargesheet has been filed in a court in Bhandara in Maharashtra.
Six persons accused of killing four members of a Dalit family in Khairlanji village, Maharashtra, were awarded the death sentence on Wednesday.
Surekha Bhaiyalal Bhotmange, her daughter Priyanka and sons Sudhir and Roshan were murdered on September 29, 2006m over a land dispute. Surekha's husband and the only surviving member of the family, Bhaiyalal, managed to escape. The four were mercilessly beaten to death and their bodies thrown into a canal in Khairlanji village, about 60 km near Nagpur, the prosecution had said.
'There is no other method to correct such a deep-seated cultural prejudice against Dalits than shock treatment,' feels Dalit intellectual- activist Dr Anand Teltumbde, author of Khairlanji: A Strange And Bitter Crop.
Bhaiyalal Bhotmange, whose four family members were tortured and murdered at Khairlanji in Bhandara district in September 2006, on Tuesday asked the Maharashtra government to hand over the land promised by it in the aftermath of the killings, which sparked nationwide protests.
'I cannot conceive of any reason than my unsparing criticism of government policies that the government picked me to send a message to many who dare to take it on.'
'Muslims and Dalits must erase the way they remember their past, or carry out their their performances in private,' says Jyoti Punwani, as Maharashtra's Censor Board denies permission to a play Jai Bhim, Jai Bharat.
'If you look at the entire protest on April 2, you will find it was not only about the Atrocities Act dilution, but the accumulated anger of the Dalit community against the BJP over the last four years.'
