India bulldozes house of man filmed allegedly urinating on tribals

Officials in India’s Madhya Pradesh state have demolished a man’s house after a video of him urinating on a tribal community went viral on social media this week, according to reports. CNN.

The man, identified by police as Pravesh Shukla, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with obscenity while the incident captured on video allegedly happened a year ago. He could be fined and jailed for up to two years, police said.

“As soon as we came to know that the video went viral, the police swung into action,” said Priya Singh, police representative of Siddi district, where the incident allegedly took place.

The district police told CNN that the state government had also ordered the demolition of Shukla’s house because it was “illegally constructed”. Local media reported that the building was bulldozed on Wednesday.

In a tweet on Friday, the Madhya Pradesh government said the victim would be given Rs 500,000 as compensation and Rs 150,000 as housing assistance.

This is not the first time Indian authorities have demolished the home of a person accused of criminal activity.

Following violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims in April 2022, authorities in Madhya Pradesh demolished several properties they said belonged to “insurgents”, saying houses and shops were illegally built on public land.

A few months later, in June 2022, authorities in the state of Uttar Pradesh demolished the homes of several people accused of rioting by two members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).