NEW DELHI: A low-caste Hindu man in India has been chained to the verandah of his house for more than two years after fellow villagers declared him insane, The Times of India newspaper reported.

Upendra Naik, 32, was declared mentally unsound in July 2003 after villagers said he stole a trident from a temple in their village, near the town of Kendrapara in the eastern state of Orissa. They also said he was violent and often hit residents.

“I am an innocent person,” Naik, a Dalit — as Hinduism’s lowest “untouchable” caste is now known — was quoted as saying. “But some unscrupulous villagers have chained my legs.”

Naik’s wife, after failing to get him freed, has moved back to her parents’ house, and Naik’s father now brings him meals in the verandah, which is regularly drenched by monsoon rains.

Authorities said they had tried to take Naik to a hospital for a check-up but were stopped by villagers.

“Nobody is ready to accompany Upendra to the hospital,” social welfare officer Anjali Das was quoted as saying.

Villagers in India often dish out their own brand of justice, even if it goes against the country’s secular and liberal constitution, and Dalits are often the victims.—Reuters