Rahul Gandhi, a key politician from India's main opposition party Congress, tweeted a video on Thursday of police beating members of a family who were reportedly resisting encroachment on their farmland and attempted suicide as police watched by consuming pesticide.
The husband and wife who attempted suicide have been admitted to hospital. The woman is reported to be in critical condition.
While sharing a video of the incident, which took place in Madhya Pradesh's Guna district, the former head of the Congress party said, "Our battle is against this very mindset and injustice". The video went viral on Twitter and has garnered 59.7K views.
Former Madhya Pradesh state chief and state Congress party leader Kamal Nath, who relinquished the state's top position to the BJP after the rival party used political manoeuvring to topple his government, lashed out at the new BJP-ruled state government. He questioned the lawlessness in Madhya Pradesh.
"What kind of jungle raj is this? Such vandalism has led to baton charge by a large number of policemen at a Dalit peasant couple," he said in a tweet.
Police have clarified that the video which was circulated on the Internet had been edited. Additionally, the people in the video are the locals who were stopping law enforcement from transporting the farmers, who they claimed attempted suicide in hospital.
Meanwhile, State chief Shivraj Singh Chouhan has ordered the a high-level probe into the incident along with the transfer of the district collector and police superintendent.
The incident comes amid a wave of discontent directed against the police for using severe force, which recently led to the death of a man and his son in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The issue sparked social media uproar and political outrage, leading to the suspension of the accused policemen. The victims had been detained by the police for allegedly keeping their shops open too late, defying lockdown rules, on 20 June.
During the lockdown, the police were also cornered for using force against internal migrants returning to their homes after the imposition of the nationwide lockdown on 25 March.