In short, the crop was gone. The crop, which belonged to Chhanabhai M Chavda, Amarbhai C Chavda and Danibend D Chavda, stood on a piece of land given to the three in 1991 under the Gujarat Agriculture Land Ceiling Act, 1960. Humiliated, the Dalits returned home.

But Chhanabhai Chavda approached Dhragandhra police the same day. But the officer present told him to give a written application. Being illiterate, he returned home, little knowing that it was just a beginning of a long ordeal.

(Under rule 5 (1) framed under the Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, anyverbal complaint about an atrocity is to be taken down in writing by a police officer in charge of a station. This is to be treated as a formal complaint.)

The next day, two Dalits gave a written complaint to Dhragandhra deputy collector, who asked them to go to the police station. ``We went to the police station and requested them to file a complaint, but the PSI told us that police would visit Kondh in the evening and asked us to go back,'' says Chhanabhai.

No one turned up. Again, they went to Dhragandhra, but the PSI said he would definitely visit the village the same day and make a panchnama. By this time, the upper-caste started pressurising the Dalits. Fearing trouble, the three Dalits fled to Ahmedabad. Meanwhile the inertia-ridden administration remained indifferent. It was only after Council for Social Justice secretary Valjibhai Patel took up the matter and wrote to the DSP on October 13 that the administration woke from its usual slumber.

A PSI visited the village on October 17, and did apanchnama. The same day, a first information report was lodged naming three men -- Ranjitsinh Raisinh, Kanchubha Chandubha and Indubha Chandubha. The three were arrested on October 19, and produced in a local court, which released them on bail.But the incident is just a tip of a deeper social evil. Some 12 other Dalits here are also unable to use the land allotted to them under the Land Ceiling Act in 1991. Reason? The land originally belonged to the once-landlord Darbars. In fact, there are 15-odd Dalits who have never been allowed to cultivate the land since it was surveyed and measured last year.

Harassment over land is not new here. In July 1997, when Dalits complained to authorities after they were prevented from using the land. Darbars allegedly told them there was a court stay on the land. Interestingly, the land, on which the Darbars claimed there was stay, bears survey numbers that are entirely different from the land concerning 12 Dalits.

Kondh seems to keep alive the age-old tale of oppression.No wonder it is one of the 11 districts in the state declared sensitive in terms of atrocities on Scheduled Caste community.