Guj told to conduct enquiry into police action against Dalits

Gujarat High Court today ordered state home secretary to constitute a high level inquiry into the case of beating up of Dalit community members by the police in Rajkot last year.
The court also ordered that six of the victims should be paid compensation of Rs 25,000 each, to be recovered from the salary of the erring officers.
A division bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala gave these directives in the matter of which they had taken suo-moto cognisance based on a letter by a human right activist.
The incident took place on June 25, 2012 when the police had thrashed dalits during a rally taken out to protest the murder of a youth.

The court has ordered that the enquiry committee be constituted by the Principal Secretary (Home) to fix the responsibilities of the erring officers and take appropriate action against them including criminal prosecution under the provisions of the CrPC.
The court has also asked the state government to compensate the six victims by paying them Rs 25,000 each and the compensation amount has to be recovered from the erring officers.

A dalit youth from Rajkot, Gunvant Rathod, was killed on June 24 last year. On the next day, a rally protesting the murder and demanding arrests of the culprits, was taken out.

The rally, however, allegedly turned violent, after which police resorted to lathicharge. Dalits alleged that the policemen entered their houses in Ambedkarnagar and mercilessly beat people there including children and women.
They lodged complaints against policemen but no action was taken against them.
Following this, local activist Dr Jayanti Mankadiya wrote to the Chief Justice about the alleged police atrocities on dalits and sought his intervention.
The letter was enclosed with the photographs and a video CD containing the police action. Then, the court took suo moto cognisance of the case.