Guwahati, July 5: The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has requested the central government to robustly enforce and implement the new provisions of the amended Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 2015.
Pointing out the incident of a person urinating on a tribal youth from Sidhi district in Madhya Pradesh recently, Assam PCC acting chairman (media department) Bharat Chandra Narah demanded exemplary punishment for the heinous crime against the tribal youth.
“A video of the person (reportedly aan aide of a BJP MLA) urinating on a Kol tribal youth from Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh has come to the fore. There is no place in a civilised society for such a heinous and obnoxious act with the youth of the tribal society,” Narah said.
“While the socioeconomic scenario for Dalits and other marginalised groups has deteriorated, the government has done little to change things. What we are witnessing is a systematic marginalisation of Dalits in the socioeconomic realm,” he said.
According to NCRB, the atrocities/crime against Scheduled Tribes have increased by 6.4 percent in 2021 (8,802 cases) over 2020 (8,272 cases).
“Even after the amendments came in force in 2016, which generated hope to the Dalit and Adivasi victims in accessing speedy justice, the implementation of the amended SCs and STs (PoA) Amended Act 2015 remains a challenge. We request the government of India to robustly enforce and implement the new provisions of the amended Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 (2015),” Narah said.
“In the context of Assam context, page number 28 of the Assam Vision Document, 2016 of BJP mentioned ST status to the six communities of Assam in a strict time bound manner. However, this promise is yet to be fulfilled,” he said.