MADURAI: Taking a serious view of an alleged attack by an Inspector on a Dalit activist, who complained about the prevalence of the twin tumbler system at a tea stall in Thanjavur, the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) has directed the Crime Branch CID to probe the case.
Aristotle, a Dalit activist from Pattukkottai, moved the court stating that he had found that a tea stall owner Karunanidhi was practising double tumbler system in Paravathur in Thanjavur. While the non-Dalits were served tea in steel tumblers, those belonging to the Scheduled Castes were served tea in disposable cups.
Upset over the discrimination on caste lines, he had submitted a representation to the Thanjavur district administration to intervene and crackdown on the twin tumbler system. He also filed a complaint against the tea stall owner at the Mathukur Police Station seeking action under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. After he lodged the complaint, the Mathukur Police Station Inspector Manoharan summoned him to the station and brutally attacked. The petitioner alleged that the Inspector reprimanded him for taking on the caste Hindus of the village.
Aristotle took up the issue with the National Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and the commission directed the Thanjavur district police to take action. However, the police did not comply prompting him to approach the court and obtain an order directing the police to register a case against Manoharan. Passing orders, Justice N Kirubakaran, transferred the case to the CB-CID for probe and directed the agency to file a charge sheet before the jurisdictional court.
Probe on in h raja hate speech: govt
Madurai: Objecting to a plea for a CBI enquiry into an alleged hate speech made by senior BJP leader H Raja, the Tamil Nadu Government has informed the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) that the police are examining the issue and will act without fear or favour in the case. A functionary of the Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI), Abdul Gafoor, had moved the court seeking a CBI probe into the alleged hate speech made by Raja against members of a particular community at a meeting in Valluvar Kottam in Chennai on January 4 this year. However, in the counter, IGP submitted that the SDPI had submitted a memorandum seeking action against Raja based on a video of the speech uploaded on the video on YouTube.