CPM slams M’rashtra for apathy to Dalits

NEW DELHI: Accusing Maharashtra government of being “insensitive” to violence against the downtrodden sections, the CPM on Friday sought the intervention of the Centre and demanded a CBI probe into the Khairlanji incident in which four members of a Dalit family were killed.

“A detailed report will be presented to the prime minister to request the intervention of the central government since the state administration has little credibility,” the party Polit Bureau said a day after a delegation led by senior leader Brinda Karat met the victims’ family at the village in Bhandara district.

In a statement, the CPM, which provides crucial outside support to the UPA Government, demanded a CBI enquiry into the incident in which a mother and her daughter were allegedly raped before being killed along with two other family members in September.

The party also sought immediate prosecution and arrest of all police officers and doctors who “connived” in helping the accused cover up the case. “The doctor did not even do the mandatory vagina swab and therefore the claim of the administration that there was no sexual assault before they were butchered is questionable.”

The delegation, which met the surviving members of this Dalit family, maintained that the investigation carried out by the police was “contaminated and polluted with crass anti- Dalit prejudices. Evidence has been destroyed, the post- mortem report fudged, accused given time to build their alibis and witnesses threatened”.

“Even a month later, the state government has not intervened to prevent this grave assault on justice and constitutional provisions for scheduled castes,” the CPM said charging the state government with “total insensitivity”.

Meanwhile, in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of the party organ ‘People’s Democracy’, Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said untouchability and other degrading practices were still rampant and such incidents reflected the plight of these downtrodden sections.

“Reservation for scheduled castes and tribes in education and jobs are but a limited palliative. Even these quotas are now being opposed and sought to be whittled down,” he said. Mr Yechury said the recent Supreme Court judgement seeking to extend the creamy layer concept to SC/ST reservation “indicates how far removed from reality is the ruling order including the highest judiciary”.

He said while such incidents were condemned whenever they occured, the “hard social realities” facing Dalits were ignored. In rural areas, land is still the central issue on which they were oppressed and exploited, with a bulk of them being landless. Untouchability and other degrading practices are still widespread, he said.