Address our concerns, don't preach lessons on Dalit atrocities: Congress tells Govt.

The Congress Party on Wednesday tried to corner the BJP-led Centre over the Una incident, saying the ruling party should address the problems rather than speaking about the history of Dalit atrocities in the country.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said the government was not responding seriously to the heinous incident in Una.

"It has taken place with some political party's involvement. There should be serious investigation into what happened," he said.

"There should be a joint parliamentary commission of all parties that should go and investigate what exactly happened and come to some conclusions about responsibility, instead we were treated to a history of atrocities against Dalits," he added.

Tharoor was referring to Home Minister Rajnath Singh's statement in the Lok Sabha over the issue in which he said attack on Dalits was a 'social evil' and urged all political parties to unite over the issue.

The Lok Sabha, where the Home minister was speaking, witnessed uproar when he tried to defend the Gujarat Government's action in the case.

"We all know that Dalits have been mistreated in for millennia in our country. But, the BJP is in power for two years and it has been in power in Gujarat for 12 years. They have certain responsibility in Gujarat and in the country, which they should address rather than going into 2000 years of history," Tharoor said.

A policeman was killed in mob violence and a Dalit committed suicide on Tuesday as protests against last week's thrashing of four youth in Una town snowballed across Saurashtra region of Gujarat.

The Dalit, who died during the day, was among the five persons from the community who tried to take their own lives in separate incidents in Gujarat.