Dalits Media Watch News Updates 10.03.14 Case against eight persons for assaulting man- The Hindu thehindu/news/cities/Coimbatore/case-against-eight-persons-for-assaulting-man/article5769265.ece Protest over Death of Dalit- The New Indian Express newindianexpress/states/andhra_pradesh/Protest-over-Death-of-Dalit/2014/03/10/article2100405.ece#.Ux12dT-SyZA Cases of delayed justice pile up in lower courts- The Hindu thehindu/news/national/tamil-nadu/cases-of-delayed-justice-pile-up-in-lower-courts/article5767596.ece New memorial to commemorate Keezhvenmani massacre- The Hindu thehindu/news/national/tamil-nadu/new-memorial-to-commemorate-keezhvenmani-massacre/article5767584.ece The Hindu Case against eight persons for assaulting man thehindu/news/cities/Coimbatore/case-against-eight-persons-for-assaulting-man/article5769265.ece The Coimbatore District Rural Police have booked eight persons under Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. According to the police, Rangasamy (36), a resident of Karumathampatty, had allegedly trespassed into the house of V. Gowri , a widow living at K.M.Patty, on March 5 and had allegedly harassed her. Her neighbours reportedly nabbed Rangasamy and handed him over to the police. However, a quarrel had broken out between Rangasamy and V. Vikky (21), Gowri’s son, on March 7. Following this, Vikky, Gowri and six others had allegedly assaulted Rangasamy on the same day and abused him using his caste name. Rangasamy was admitted to Coimbatore Medical College Hospital. Based on a complaint lodged by Rangasamy, the Karumathampatty Police have registered a case and invoked sections 147 (rioting), 148 (Rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (ii) (if threat be to cause death or grievous hurt) of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 3(1)(X) of the SC/ST Act. Further investigations are on. The New Indian Express Protest over Death of Dalit newindianexpress/states/andhra_pradesh/Protest-over-Death-of-Dalit/2014/03/10/article2100405.ece#.Ux12dT-SyZA Traffic came to a standstill for about two hours on NH 16 at Gannavaram in Krishna district Sunday as a large number of Dalits staged a ‘rasta roko’ in protest against the death of a member of their community. According to sources, 45-year-old Daiva Kumar, a Dalit who was the secretary of the Buddhavaram Cooperative Bank, went to Gannavaram Saturday evening to pick up his daughter, the student of an engineering college at Gannavaram. The Hindu Cases of delayed justice pile up in lower courts thehindu/news/national/tamil-nadu/cases-of-delayed-justice-pile-up-in-lower-courts/article5767596.ece Charge sheets filed in many grave crime cases, but trial yet to begin More than a decade ago, a differently-abled girl was allegedly raped by a youth. The deaf and dumb girl of Dharmapuri managed to give an account of the incident to her family and even identified the suspect. After 14 long years, trial is yet to commence in the case. Govindan (70), a Dalit of the same district, was killed and many others were injured when an armed gang unleashed violence in Veppampatti near Harur in 1998. Though the case was charge sheeted, trial has not commenced so far. “A gang attacked us following a rivalry in local body election. My father died and many of my family members suffered grievous injuries in the attack. A couple of my relatives are yet to recover...we continue to suffer and there seems to be no hope of any justice,” says Dhanapal (42). These are just examples among hundreds of grave crimes that are reportedly pending in lower courts even after the police laid charge sheets. The cases were not committed to the Sessions court for “insufficient” or “missing” documents. In many cases, all the accused could not be produced in court for serving the charge sheet, a reason for trial not commencing. An IPS officer in Tamil Nadu who came across a murder case where trial had not begun for many years went into the details and was shocked to find that it was one among 200 such cases in the district. The officer, who is Dharmapuri Superintendent of Police Asra Garg, conducted a special drive in November last year and found that 60 cases of murder, five dacoities, 30 rapes, 30 attempts to murder and ten SC/ST Act cases were among the crimes not committed to Sessions court for trial. “We formed special teams to re-submit the documents and took steps to commit the cases to the Sessions court. The Principal District Judge was cooperative in expediting the process. For the first time, we have created a mechanism to ensure that documents don’t go missing from case files. The police now take a written acknowledgement from the courts after filing the charge sheet,” Mr. Garg said. Similarly, a few hundreds of cases of heinous crimes are believed to be awaiting trial across the State for many reasons. In West Zone, comprising 8 districts and two commissionerates, Inspector-General of Police S. Davidson Devasirvatham says police were told to identify cases where trial had not commenced for long and take appropriate action. Institutional connivance According to Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) president and advocate V. Suresh, there was an institutional connivance leading to delayed justice in several cases of crimes where the weakest sections of society were victims. In some cases, the victims genuinely failed to remember the facts of the case or the suspects after so many years. The Hindu New memorial to commemorate Keezhvenmani massacre thehindu/news/national/tamil-nadu/new-memorial-to-commemorate-keezhvenmani-massacre/article5767584.ece In memory of 44 Dalits who were charred to death in agrarian wage struggle On Sunday, women and men, comrades and progressives, marched along the narrow winding roads to Keezhvenmani village in Keezhvelur at Nagapattinam, to commemorate the new memorial eternalising the memory of 44 Dalits — children, women and men — who were burnt to death in an agrarian wage struggle in 1968. Keezhvenmani was perhaps the first chronicle of violence against Dalits in Independent India both as a labouring class and as outcastes finding their nascent voice under the banner of the Communist movement that was gaining ground in the then East Thanjavur region. Here, in a wage struggle, 16 women, 23 children, and five men were charred to death inside a hut in which they took refuge. The killings were a culmination of a protracted struggle for wage hike by landless labourers, primarily Dalits, under the rising red flag union of the then Unified East Thanjavur district. That was on December 25, 1968. It redefined the etymology of violence against Dalits, both as Caste and as a Class that was systematically kept out of land ownership, and was seeking due wages under the strength of communism. With the highest percentage of Dalits among the landless at that time, class struggle merged with caste struggle. And for Tamil Nadu, a State that had catalysed promising changes under the banner of Dravidian ideology in 1967, the gruesome caste-class killings of Keezhvenmani was a jolt. The Keezhvenmani incident also launched irreversible agrarian changes, spawning mass scale redistribution of temple and mutt lands in East Thanjavur region. The newly-erected granite memorial with 44 pillars was inaugurated by the Communist Party of India (Marixst). The memorial, built of contributions to the tune of Rs.3 crore from members of CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Unions), is earthquake resistant. As if to immortalise the underlying struggle, the structure, after seven years of labour, has been consciously constructed of granite to stand the test of time. Dedicating the memorial, spread over 4000 sq.ft., in the presence of the CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, the CITU State president A.Soundarajan said the memorial should serve as a tourist site for all left-thinking progressives from across the country. News Monitor by Girish Pant
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 08:40:50 +0000
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