Chandigarh
Crime against Dalits has been on the higher side in the land of khap panchayats and is showing no signs of abating.
There have been 40 murders, 179 rapes and 107 cases of kidnapping and abduction registered under the head ‘Crime Against Scheduled Castes’ in Haryana from 2005 to 2009, as per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)’s recent report. In the same period, there have been 424 cases registered under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 212 cases of hurt and 10 cases of arson.
Among the well known cases are Mirchpur, where a 70-year-old man and his handicapped daughter were torched to death on April 21 last year, Jhajjar (where five Dalits were lynched in 2002) and Gohana (where about 50 houses of Dalits were burnt).
In 2005, a total of 288 cases were registered as crimes against Dalits; in 2006 the number was 283; in 2007 it was 227. But in 2008, it jumped to 341 and in 2009 to 303.
Haryana, with a total of 1442 incidents, is also quite ahead of its neighbouring states, with Punjab at 710, Uttarakhand at 338, Himachal Pradesh at 397 and Jammu and Kashmir at 5, in the 2005-2009 period.
At the National Commission of Scheduled Castes’ (NCSC) office in Chandigarh , the record of the state is poor as well. It received 837 complaints from the period 2006-07 to 2010-2011(till date). The maximum (517) among them are connected to atrocities. There are 172 complaints about being discriminated in service matters and 25 about land matters, in the same period.
“If Dalits are alienated from the mainstream, the nation will suffer. In Haryana, whether it is Om Prakash Chautala or Bhupinder Singh Hooda, they want Jat votes. They are afraid of a clash and have natural sympathy with them. Earlier also ( in 2002), five Dalits were lynched in Jhajjar in Haryana for allegedly skinning a cow. In Haryana, Dalits are treated worse than animals,” said Dr Udit Raj, President of Indian Justice Party. He had organised conversions in Gurgaon on October 27, 2002 in response to the Jhajjar lynchings.
“It is a terrorism of Jat community. We are being threatened. In my farm house 135 Dalit families are staying after leaving Mirchpur. The government is also threatening me that the farm house is illegal. The children of families were given admissions only after a lot of hue and cry. Today, I was arrested by the police because they fear I would spoil the peace in the area on April 21. The Dalits gheraoed the SP of Hisar and then I was released,” said Ved Pal Tanwar, President, Non-Jat Organisation, who claims to represent 35 communities other than Jats.
Prof Ronki Ram, a social scientist from Panjab University, said, “The economic position in the regions of Haryana is changing fast. Expectations of people are rising. The lower castes are asserting but the dominant community is not giving them space, which is leading to conflict.”
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