VILLUPURAM: The Villupuram district administration, for reasons best known to it, has not dared to touch the perpetrators of caste discrimination at Melpathi village. The state of affairs is no different at Vengavayal in the Pudukottai district.
Melpathi caste crime
On Friday, April 7, 2023, Dalit youth K Kathiravan (23) and his two brothers were abused and beaten up by Vanniyars of the village for trying to enter the Sri Dharmaraja Draupati Amman temple on the occasion of the annual festival there.
Vengavayal atrocity
On December 22, 2022, five Dalit children hailing from Vengavayal in Pudukottai district were hospitalized after they fell ill. Doctors who treated the children alerted the villagers of possible contamination of water. Subsequently, human excreta was discovered in the overhead water tank supplying drinking water to Dalit families.
In both these cases, justice for the Dalits remains a mirage as the government is caught in a self-induced slumber.
Delay in recording FIR violation of SC/ST Act
In Melpathi, the police are yet to record the First Information Report (FIR) even after a complaint has been lodged on behalf of the victims. As if to add salt to their wounds, the Dalits were driven to the wall by authorities who would rather prefer to "resolve" the issue "amicably" rather than take action against the perpetrators.
The delay on the part of the police to record an FIR is against the law, says activist R Lalitha.
"This delay in itself is a rule breaker of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act", said Lalitha, a human rights activist in the district.
"According to chapter II, section 4 of the SC/ST PoA 1989, any public servant who neglects their duty willfully may also be subjected to six months to one-year imprisonment for violating the Act. So in this case if there is no FIR even after four days since the crime was reported, it is the failure of the state government and police to protect the dignity of Dalit people as ensured in the Indian Constitution," Lalitha said.
"According to the act, any public servant who neglects their duty willfully may also be subjected to up to one-year imprisonment", Lalitha further added.
(With inputs from Online Desk.)