Some of the accused in the case are from so-called upper castes.
In a shocking incident of caste-based violence in Uttar Pradesh's Raebareli, a minor boy from the Dalit community was assaulted and made to lick the feet of one of the accused.
A 2 min 30-second video viral on social media shows the boy sitting on the ground with his hands on his ears - a sign of punishment. The accused can be sitting on motorcycles, some of them laughing as the victim shakes in fear on the ground. One of the accused asks the victim the spell the name 'Thakur' - an upper caste and also abuses him. "Will you make such a mistake again?" another accused asks the victim.
Another video appears to show the men accusing the victim of selling Marijuana, a charge the victim appears to accept under duress.
Police arrested eight people after a video of the assault went viral. The police say the incident took place on April 10 and the arrests were made after a written complaint by the victim. Some of the accused in the case are from so-called upper castes.
"The aggrieved student had given a complaint at the police station after which those who assaulted him have been booked by the UP police under relevant sections of the law. The same video is now viral on social media," Ashok Singh, a senior police official said in a statement.
According to police, on April 10, the boy, a resident of Jagatpur town, was taken to Ramlila Maidan on a motorcycle by his friend. Police said he was later taken towards Salon Road, from where some other youths took him to a garden.
The accused men beat him up in the garden, they said.
The victim is a class 10 student and lives with his widowed mother. Initial reports suggested that the victim's mother had worked in the fields of some of the accused and the boy had been asking them for money for the said work. But at the home of the victim, his sisters denied this. "It's not true. In fact, it is still not clear why my brother was assaulted. He told us that he asked the attackers why they were beating him and got no convincing answer," one of the sisters, a 19-year-old, said.
"What happened to my brother, should not happen to anyone else. The accused should get the strictest possible punishment," the other sister, 24, told NDTV.