NCSC chairman slams Modi government

Criticising the Narendra Modi-led central government, National Commission for Scheduled Caste (NCSC) Chairman P.L. Punia said the Prime Minister has made baseless statement about the protection of Dalits.

The Prime Minister should talk of punishing those who kill Dalits and take strict actions against them, Punia told reporters here on Friday, the last day of his tenure as the NCSC chairman.

"Modi says, 'don't kill Dalits, kill me instead'. His statement does not make any sense. He should rather say that we would kill those who kill Dalits," Punia said.

"When Dalits were attacked in Telangana, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader stated that if required, this would happen again. Why wasn't any action taken against that leader?" he said.

Referring to the appointment of Justice Roopanwal to probe the circumstances leading to Rohith Vemula's suicide inn Hyderabad, Punia said: "He was hired to put a 'seal of approval' on the claims made by BJP people that Vemula was not a Dalit."

But the NCSC proved that Vemula was a Dalit, he added.

--IANS

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