From Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI: Meghalaya’s Minister for Social Justice J A Lyngdoh has claimed that the State does not have any case of atrocities on Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Participating in the conference of Home Ministers and Ministers of Social Justice, Lyngdoh said, “I am glad to state that till date, there has been no reported case of atrocities towards any member of the SC or ST”.
“Yet the state has implemented the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities ) Act 1989,” Lyngdoh said adding that the state has also set up a state-level and district-level vigilance and monitoring committees.
The Minister said, “There is a perfect harmony among the three major tribes of Meghalaya – Khasis, Garos and Jaintias. The benefits of different schemes and programmes of the Government are equitably extended to every community, he added.
Addressing the conference, Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Mukul Wasnik said the conviction rate on cases of atrocities on SCs and STs in India has been between 3 to 8 per cent while pendency of such cases in court has between 80 to 90 per cent.
In his inaugural address, Home Minister P Chidambaram said SC/ST population in the country was 25 per cent yet “we are in a state of denial”.
The Home Minister said though untouchability has gone on the face, it continues to hunt the society in different forms and its definition has changed from time to time.
Chidambaram said Dalits were denied entry into temples 40 years ago and now they were denied access to police station and many of them were denied bank credits. “That is another form of untouchability. The basic problem is that we continue to regard them as children of lesser god. It is a stain and shame,” he said.
The conference deliberated on the status of necessary institutional framework for the protection of SCs/STs rights, registration and investigation of offences under the Act, delineation of atrocity prone areas and preventive action in regard thereto, and pendency and conviction rate of cases under the Act. Issues of awareness, sensitisation and training will also be discussed so as to make the Act more effective.