A five-year-old girl belonging to the Scheduled Caste was raped by a 55-year-old man whom the little one addressed as ‘thatha’ (grandpa), at Sanivarapupeta in Eluru.
Though the heinous crime against the girl was committed in April of 2013, the victim’s family is yet to receive the second instalment of compensation promised to them by the government.
This and 24 other cases related to rape, murder, assault and cheating came up before a panel of jury at a round table conference on ‘Atrocities Against Dalit Women and Girl Children’ organised in the city by Dalit Sthree Sakthi (DSS) on Friday. Victims and witnesses in these cases reported from different districts represented to the jury members comprising Director of the Social Welfare Department Raghuram, Deputy Director of Prosecution B. Rama Koteswara Rao, retired Judge Satyanarayana Reddy, National Human Rights Commission general secretary Paul Diwakar, Ambedkar Mission founder president P.S.N. Murthy, SC-ST-IAS-IPS Forum in-charge Siddhaji and many other leaders of employees’ unions and Dalit associations.
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The jury members admitted that there were loopholes in laws that provided ample scope for offenders to go scot-free at times. The community leaders said Ministers and other people’s elected representatives for SC community should consider it their bounden duty to ensure justice to victims of atrocities. They said the functioning style of these leaders should be put under scrutiny and a report should be submitted to the Cabinet.
They also proposed a Dalit Vigilant Group, an amalgamation of different Dalit associations which could simultaneously release its independent reports at the time of such atrocities.
The leaders appealed to the authorities to address cases pending for a long time and make immediate payment of compensation.
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Dalit Sthree Sakthi national programme manager Daniel Prakash was the coordinator of the programme while national convenor Gaddam Jhansi was the moderator.