Jaipur: Several cases of discrimination against children from Adivasi and Dalit families at government schools in the state were presented at a public hearing jointly organized by Centre for Dalit Rights in the state capital and National Dalit Movement for Justice, New Delhi. Nine-year-old Manju is blind in one eye. Her father, who accompanied her from their Bharatpur home, said the child had been injured after a schoolteacher slapped her.
Manju told the gathering: "My teacher slapped me and I was injured. There was a fight between children at school, and I was slapped for it." Justice NK Jain, leafing through the papers in the case, said, "A doctor at SMS Hospital in Jaipur, where the girl was taken for treatment, has testified that she was injured in a fight between kids, as children were throwing chappals at each other. The doctor can only remark about the nature of the injury and the medical examination shows the child suffered an injury from a blunt object. The injury is also of a complete and permanent nature. This is a matter that can be revived in court, even though police have filed a closure report. The school register has been used to show that the teacher the girl has named was absent on the day of the incident. As you know, a good lawyer can bring you victory even in a false case. And a poor lawyer may cause you to lose in court even when your case is strong."
The parents of 14-year-old Mamata, who went missing in June 2015 was there too. The girl's mother, who could not contain her tears, said, "I opened a shop in our village in Mehndipur Balaji, Dausa district. This caused people of the upper caste in the area some discomfort. We have accused a 22-year-old upper caste man of taking away my girl. The man too is untraceable now." The girl's father said, "For over a year, I neglected my work and attempted to trace my daughter. How much longer can we go on like that? I have now moved to Jaipur with my three other children."
Justice Jain said the director general of police has admitted in court that his hands are tied since the anti-human trafficking team is short-staffed. "There are at least 12,000 cases of missing people not traced in the state. These cases are long pending, and the government's excuse is that it is short staffed. This reveals a shocking lack of will on the part of authorities to trace missing people. Even in the famous Bhanwari Devi case, it was on the intervention of the court after a complaint from the missing woman's husband that the murder was established, after the bones were sent for testing to the US."
