JAIPUR: Leaders of the
CPM split into groups and toured parts of the state to meet those affected after the clampdown on the April 2 protesters. The team took photographs of people displaying bruises which they sustained in lathi-charges on the day of the protest. Leaders of the CPM said government must ensure that those guilty of the violence are brought to book, and the innocent are not harassed.
ADG (Crime) Pankaj Singh said, “Police registers an FIR when private people approach. Prima facie, a complaint might appear false but police may not refuse to register an FIR. A proper investigation will be conducted.”
On April 2, people across the state joined the protest after a call circulated on social media to observe an all-India bandh against the Supreme Court’s amendment of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. People of the SC/ST communities who participated found that several FIRs are registered against them.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, former MLA Amra Ram said, “We will be gathering at all district headquarters on Tuesday to submit petitions with our demands. The SC/ST Act should be restored. We want all false cases against members of SC/ST communities to be immediately withdrawn. One minister has said now that all cases will be withdrawn – we want to clarify that the government must pursue the matter of the violence that erupted in different parts and bring the guilty to book. Cases were registered against innocent people. Those should be dropped. In one instance, a man who died about a decade ago has been charged. In Bharatpur, police roped in a college lecturer to pacify the crowds, took a video of him addressing the gathering, and then proceeded to lodge an FIR against him for rousing the mob.”
Amra Ram said 18 people had died across the country in the violence that was unleashed on the SC/ST protest – 17 of these deaths were caused by police firing. “Pawan Jatav, the 27-year-old killed in Alwar, took bullets in the head. Almost all those killed were shot dead. Policemen are taught to fire in the air and if they must fire at all at people, they must target the lower limbs so that there are no fatalities. Why are people on protest shot in the head?”
Speaking of the detention of
Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mewani on Sunday and the clampdown on farmers marching to the state capital in February, Amra Ram said under prevailing conditions, it is almost as if
Rajasthan is not part of a democracy. “The chief minister is now meeting people, but these are ‘public hearings’ only in name – the media is not allowed, and only those invited by a
BJP legislator are allowed entry. Raje should be asked whether she is CM for the whole state.”