CHANDIGARH: The National Scheduled Castes Alliance today urged the Union Home Minister Mr. Amit Shah to take serious notice of the matter pertaining to the arrest of Delhi based woman reporter Bhawana Kishore and her two colleagues for alleged casteist slurs by the Punjab police in Ludhiana on May 7 while campaigning in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha by-poll on fake charges under SC/ST act.
Mr. Paramjit Singh Kainth, president of the NSCA said that the alliance had never supported fake SC/ST atrocity cases. In this case also, the woman reporter was made a soft target by getting a case registered against her and her two colleagues under the SC/ST act merely for the fact that she had done a story on the lavish renovation of the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for which she was taught a lesson. He said that in Delhi, being a Union Territory, the police administration does not come under the AAP government led by Kejriwal and that is why the individuals opposed to Kejriwal are booked in false cases registered in Punjab. He alleged that under the garb of the act, the AAP government has been playing with the sentiments of the SC/ST communities and trying to divide the people on caste basis to create unrest in the state which will not be tolerated.
The most astonishing part of the case is that an FIR has been registered against the scribes on the complaint of a woman activist Gagan of the Aam Aadmi Party who was reported to be on her way to attend the inauguration of an Aam Aadmi Clinic (Mohalla clinic) on Shingar Cinema road in Ludhiana by Delhi CM Kejriwal and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann. This clearly shows who is behind this entire episode, Kainth alleged.
Mr. Kainth said that the fact that Dalits have been oppressed for many centuries cannot be denied. The Union Government, no doubt has taken steps by enacting legislation such as the SC-ST Prevention of Atrocities Act and made amendments timely based on the needs in order to ensure protection to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe community from social disabilities for instance denial of access to certain places or using customary passage, personal atrocities such as drinking or eating inedible food, sexual exploitation, malicious prosecution, verbal, or physical abuse or harassment over the supremacy of the caste system. It has also been mentioned in the act that to cure the atrocities of the SC/ST community cannot be misused to cause harassment to individuals of other communities. Such aggrieved persons can take recourse if threatened with a fake atrocity case under the SC/ST Act.
With the registration of a fake case against the woman scribe and her two colleagues, this is clearly a case of abuse of the SC/ST act and such kind of practice should be stopped immediately. Instances like these hinder the power of credibility for real situations of discriminations and crimes against the SC/ST community.