Police have arrested two people, including the chairman of Aurahi Rural Municipality, on the charge of caste-based discrimination against a Dalit family in Siraha district.

Shivaji Yadav, the local government chief, and Dilip Yadav, a former ward chair, were arrested on Friday evening, according to Deputy Inspector General Lalmani Acharya, chief of the Madhesh Provincial Police Office.

He said that an investigation is underway, with police questioning the suspects. Acharya said they would register a complaint from the victim on Saturday.

Shivaji, Dilip and Bajrangi Baba had allegedly bulldozed a house of the Dalit family for Mahayagya (grand Hindu sacrificial ritual), setting up a temporary shelter for the Dalits away from the rest of the community. All of them were on the run. The trio had absconded after their act drew widespread criticism.

The soil from the site where Deepak Malik Dom’s home once stood was also removed, claiming that the land had been rendered impure. The Dalit family living near the ‘Vishnu Mahayagya’ proposed site along the Hulaki Highway in Aurahi was displaced ahead of the event scheduled to start on March 30.

The impoverished Dom family, who had been living in the area for 30 years, were provided with a two-room home five years ago under the ‘Janata Awas Programme,’ built by the rural municipality with federal government funding. However, the same rural municipality has demolished his home.

The family has been relocated to a distant plot in the village, where a two-room thatched hut with bamboo walls has been erected.

Speaking in the House of Representatives on Thursday, lawmakers from various parties demanded a parliamentary probe into the matter. The National Human Rights Commission has launched an investigation into the case. The NHRC’s provincial office in Janakpur has initiated an inquiry into the incident.