Kottakatchiyendal village panchayat president V. Karuppan has written to the Chief Secretary seeking enquiry by a senior official into the allegations of caste discrimination he had levelled against the vice-president and ward members.
Expressing shock over a report on his making a “U-turn” on the issue, Mr. Karuppan said that he had neither withdrawn his complaint nor mentioned anything contradicting his earlier statements to the Virudhunagar District Collector. He was still restrained from acting independently and there was no fairness in the enquiry that was on.
(In a complaint to the Director-General of Police, the panchayat president had accused the vice-president, ward members and a clerk of harassing him on caste lines and also threatening him.)
Mr. Karuppan claimed that he was falsely implicated in a case pertaining to financial irregularities. Pointing to his written complaint that the vice-president and clerk had forcibly taken his signatures on cheques, he wondered how he could be involved in a fraud when he had no knowledge about the nature of transactions.
The Virudhunagar Collector and the Superintendent of Police visited the village following a report in The Hindu on June 7, 2012 and held discussions with both parties and asked them settle issues amicably. However, this was followed by a complaint by the Narikudi Block development Officer accusing the Kottakatchiyendhal panchayat president, vice-president and the clerk.
Appealing to the Chief Secretary to withdraw the case against him and restore power to sign cheques, Mr. Karuppan wanted a senior official in the Department of Local Administration to conduct the enquiry.
“There is no question of my withdrawing the complaint or making a ‘U-turn'. Instead of registering a case against the accused persons under the provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, the officials have registered a case against me. I am being targeted only because I am a Dalit…I reiterate that I was forced to sit on the floor during meetings and subjected to different forms of humiliation,” he told The Hindu on Wednesday.
