CHENNAI: Over half-a-century after a draconian colonial law branding some communities as “criminal tribes” was abolished, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has recommended sensitisation of Tamil Nadu police personnel, who still harbour prejudice against the Kurava community — one of the denotified tribes.
In a report recently submitted to the President, the commission highlighted 21 cases, in which men and women from the Kurava community were subjected to torture in police custody. The panel stressed the need for immediate steps to address the prejudice prevalent in the force.
Calling for sensitisation “to change the predetermined wrong notion about the Kurava community persons being thieves from the time immemorial”, the report suggests that the State’s home department or the Director General of Police issue a directive, advising personnel to register cases against people from the Kurava community based only on evidence and not on assumptions or suspicions.
Kurava is one of the 150-odd tribes branded “criminal” during the British regime, giving sweeping powers to the police to summon, detain or arrest any adult men from these communities. Though the law was abolished after independence, little has changed in the way the community is looked down upon, leaving men and women susceptible to custodial torture.
Analysing the case studies of 21 men and women from the community, who claimed to have faced custodial torture, the team observed that members were subjected to extreme forms of torture to extract confessional statements. Pouring chilli powder, penetrating private parts of women with lathis, stripping them naked in front of strangers and hanging them upside down were some of the cruel methods the report pointed out. The high-handed treatment has left a lasting scar in the psyche of the people. While women now face neurological and psychological illnesses with concomitant lack of socio-economic securities, men live in constant fear, besides suffering from disabilities due to grievous injuries. Children too were not left untouched by brutality and the resulting stigma. Those branded thieves dropped out of schools, later finding odd jobs as child labourers, it stated.
Calling for sensitisation of the police to shed their prejudice against the community, the report stressed that social welfare department must compensate the victims of police brutality, and take necessary steps to ensure that the younger generation got access to education.