At least 25 incidents of violence had been perpetrated against members of Scheduled Caste (SC) community across the State during the COVID-19 lockdown, said A. Kathir, executive director of Evidence, a Madurai-based non-governmental organisation.
Most of the incidents could be traced to land disputes or love affairs.
In one such incident, one Sudakaran of Arani Taluk was in love with a girl belonging to an upper caste and they were planning to marry. Objecting to it, the girl’s father and a relative murdered the youth on March 29.
On April 23, when a TV channel journalist Adi Suresh videographed a statue of B.R. Ambedkar after it was allegedly defaced by unidentified persons, he was attacked by a 10-member gang.
In another incident, a group of 15 persons in Tiruvannamalai district forced Scheduled Caste people to vacate an agricultural field and set fire to the crop.
Tamil Selvan, a Dalit from Kottaipatti near Nilakottai in Dindigul district, married a caste Hindu girl from a neighbouring village and fearing attack, they settled down in Periyakulam.
When the woman delivered twins on April 16, they returned home on the hope that the girl’s relatives would have forgotten the past and welcome them.
However, on the night of April 22, 15 huts in the village were destroyed.
Mr. Kathir said that atrocities against Dalits were on the rise as the government machinery was focused on containing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though the police had arrested the culprits in all these cases, the State government should direct the enforcing agencies to detain the accused under Goondas Act and compensate the victims at the earliest.
