Patna: Exploitation of the dalits no longer seems to be the domain of the upper caste landlords in Bihar.

This came to light on Saturday, that too fortuitously, when camerapersons of the electronic media got a wind of confinement of two dalit youths at the residence of Minister of State for Co-operation Lalit Kumar Yadav.

The scene was appalling. Deena Nath Baitha, a dalit youth from Sasaram in Rohtas district, could not even stand up. The henchmen of the minister had extracted the nails of his legs with pliers, because they believed he had been a privy to the looting of a truck owned by the minister, who represents Manigachi assembly constituency in Darbhanga district of north Bihar.

Baitha, with tears in his eyes, told newsmen that Surendra Yadav, a close relative of the minister, had also urinated on his face thrice. He was beaten mercilessly. "I am being subjected to third-degree torture every day since I was forcibly brought here on June 7," Baitha said.

Giving details of loot of the truck on its journey to Muzaffarpur in north Bihar from Sasaram in central Bihar, Baitha admitted that he had had a drink with some strangers to whom he had given a lift at a roadside "dhaba". "When I woke up, I found the truck missing and rushed to the residence of the owner to inform him about the missing vehicle," he said.

It was here that Baitha's woes began. First he was kept in captivity along with the cleaner of the missing truck and later subjected to inhuman treatment.

The police lodged an FIR against the minister and three others after the news was aired by three TV channels on Saturday. The two victims have been brought to the secretariat police station at the bidding of Laloo Prasad Yadav.

This is not the first incident of atrocities being perpetrated by the henchmen and relatives of ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal legislators. Social scientists attribute this new phenomenon to emergence of Yadavas, castemen of Laloo Prasad Yadav, as the most dominant backward caste in the state in the post-Mandal period.