"Unhappy" with Haryana, Punjab, UP, Bihar's record: SC panel

The National Commission for Scheduled Castes today expressed strong displeasure over Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar governments' failure to prevent "steep rise" in atrocities against people from weaker sections.
"The Commission is in the final stages of preparing a report card on the functioning of Haryana, Punjab, Bihar and UP governments regarding increase in cases of atrocities against Dalits," NCSC vice-chairman Raj Kumar Verka told reporters here.
The Commission had prepared a list of IAS, IPS and other senior state government officials who had failed to properly deal with cases of atrocities on Dalits in areas under their jurisdiction, Verka said.

Asked about the Congress-ruled Haryana, Verka, himself a Congress MLA from Amritsar (West) in Punjab said, "situation in Haryana is bad".
Complaints received by the Commission pertaining to atrocities against Dalits numbered 11,000 in Punjab and Haryana has seen 16,000 such cases over the last year, he said.
"We are taking complaints on a day-to-day basis," he said, claiming that the Commission had succeeded in disposing 2,000 complaints in Haryana and 1,400 in Punjab.

"The rate of conviction is just six to eight per cent," Verka said, expressing serious concern over the "meagre" rate of conviction on complaints of atrocities against Dalits.

In many cases, either the witnesses were pressurised or not even allowed to reach court, he added.
Suggesting correctional measures, Verka said state governments must remove the deputy commissioner and senior superintendent of police, wherever cases of atrocities against Dalits were found pending for a period of over three months.
Worried over the situation in Haryana, the Commission had suggested that the state government set up fast track courts, special police stations and SC commissions to settle cases of atrocities against Dalits, he said.
Regarding a recent incident in Tarn Taran district, where a woman was assaulted by police personnel, Verka said it was "unfortunate" how Punjab Congress MLAs had brought the victim to the state Assembly, disrupting its budget session.