Aarefa Johari: Eight days after a mob of self-appointed “cow protection” vigilantes in Gujarat stripped, tied and beat up four Dalit men for skinning a dead cow, an unprecedented Dalit uprising is underway in the state, with at least two people reported dead on Tuesday. The incident that triggered the ongoing turmoil took place on July 11, when a group of Shiv Sena vigilantes came across a Dalit family skinning the carcass of a cow in Gir Somnath district’s Una taluka. Accusing them of cow slaughter, the mob began to thrash the Dalits with iron pipes and rods, stripped four of them, tied them to the back of a vehicle and dragged them from their village to Una town, where they were beaten right near a police station for several hours. The assaulted men are still recovering in a Rajkot hospital. More here.