Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
A recent incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri was once again shocked the nation. On Wednesday evening, the bodies of two juvenile girls, ages 15 and 17, from the scheduled caste community
A recent incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri was once again shocked the nation. On Wednesday evening, the bodies of two juvenile girls, ages 15 and 17, from the scheduled caste community, were discovered hanging from a tree within the Nighasan police station limits of Lakhimpur Kheri district. Local villagers and the girls' family accused three men of rape and murder and mounted a protest along the village's Nighasan crossing.
Taking note of the gravity and seriousness of the situation, Lucknow range inspector general (IG) of police Laxmi Singh and Lakhimpur Kheri superintendent of police (SP) Sanjiv Suman rushed to the protest site to assure the protesting villagers about a serious action against the culprits and thorough investigation in to the matter. The top rank police officials assured the villagers about a stringent action and requested them to call-off their protests and road block and cooperate with the post-mortem examination. The bodies of the girls were then taken for the post-mortem. According to the locals, the bodies of two girls were found hanging from a tree with scarf around their neck in a sugar cane field in Tamiloapurwa village.
In a statement to the press, the mother of two girls alleged that the three men from neighboring village who came on a bike abducted the girls while the girls were cutting fodder in the field and later murdered them and hanged them to a tree. Police later arrested five men from the neighboring village on Wednesday evening and the sixth one was arrested on Thursday morning in an encounter. Sanjiv Suman, SP of Lakhimpur Kheri district said that the police have arrested each and everyone involved in the crime. The police further added that the girls were not kidnapped but they went willingly with the men. SP Suman told the reporters that Suhail, Junaid, Hafizul Rehman, Karimuddin and Arif are the six men arrested for the heinous murder and gang rape of the two minors.
This incident has once again brought the atrocities and crimes committed against the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes to the forefront. The chart below shows the number of crimes committed against the Scheduled castes in India from 2019-2021.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau
The crimes committed against the scheduled castes have gone up from 45,961 in 2019 to 50,900 in 2021. In spite of the nationwide lockdown imposed due to the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the number of crimes committed against the SCs increased from 45,961 in 2019 to 50,291 in 2020. This shows that irrespective of any circumstances, there has been an increase in crime against the SCs. Also, the cases registered under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) for crime against the SCs witnessed an increase from 4144 in 2019 to 5269 in 2022.
In 2021, maximum crimes against the SCs (13,146) were committed in Uttar Pradesh followed by Rajasthan (7524), Madhya Pradesh (7214) and Bihar (5842). ‘Simple hurt’ accounted for maximum cases (15,963) of crime against the SCs in 2021 followed by Rape (3893) and Assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty (3828). Of the total 50,291 cases registered in 2020 for crimes committed against the SCs, 17,146 cases are pending for investigation and the total number of cases for investigation in 2021 stands at 62,807. The charge sheet was filed in only 7599 cases out of 50,291 in 2020. This shows that the charge sheeting rate is very low in the cases of crimes against the scheduled castes and this prolongs the delivery of justice.
In spite of number of acts, provisions in the constitution and provisions under the IPC, data shows that the crime against scheduled castes in India is on a constant rise.
