leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Charanjit Singh Channi on Saturday expressed his sense of shock over alarming rise in crime against Dalits ever since Parkash Singh Badal took over as the Chief Minister in 2007.
Citing data received by RTI activist Jasdeepak Singh from the Punjab State Scheduled Castes Commission, he said the number of total complaints with the Commission increased from just 651 in 2007 to a staggering 12,834 and these complaints were in various categories, including services.
“The complaints against atrocities on Dalits increased to 7,709 in 2015 as compared to 473 in 2007, which is almost fifteen times. The cases of complaints registered with the commission about the service matters increased from 106 to 1311 in these eight years while the government was only able to resolve 768 out of these complaints, 543 are still pending,” Channi said, questioning the Chief Minister as to why the Dalits continue to be targeted so blatantly.
Out of the 12,834 complaints, the end of 2015 had decided only 5,456. In case of atrocities, 3,714 cases had been decided and still 3,995 are pending in the process of the commission. In total 7,378 complaints are pending till date.
Channi asserted the disturbing rise in such complaints was proof enough that the Badal Government was anti-Dalit and running rough-shod over them who constitute 33 per cent of the population in Punjab, the highest as compared to other States in the country.
He said these people will not now be misled by utter lies of this Government whose real face now stand exposed.
Channi also blamed the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is also the Home Minister of the State to explain to the people of Punjab out of these 7,709 cases of Dalit atrocities, which victim family was visited by the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister or any other senior colleagues in the Government.
Channi too questioned the registration of the cases with the commission because very few people approach the commission more of them only file complaint with the police.