Ahmedabad leads in atrocity cases: RTI

Times of India‎‎: Ahmedabad: Wednesday, September 07, 2016.

An RTI reply from Gujarat Police has stated that Ahmedabad district leads in atrocities against dalits, with 1,834 cases registered in the last 15 years, shattering the myth that discrimination or offences against the downtrodden class is a more rural phenomenon.

RTI figures compiled from 41 superintendent of police offices across the state show that Ahmedabad city and Ahmedabad rural police registered 940 and 894 cases of atrocity against dalits respectively. These numbers are 5.90% and 5.56% of the 16,069 atrocity offences registered in Gujarat from 2000 to April 2016. These atrocities include murder, grievous hurt, rape and arson which have been registered under The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Ahmedabad is not alone, other big cities like Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot registered 277, 179 and 291 cases respectively in these 15-odd years. Similarly, rural areas in Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot registered 313, 73 and 839 cases in the same period.

The RTI figures further show that Banaskantha district of North Gujarat follows Ahmedabad with 1,646 atrocity cases registered from 2001 to April 2016. It accounts for 10.24% of all atrocity cases in the state.

The Saurashtra-Kutch region accounts for the highest number of atrocity cases in Gujarat. Major Saurashtra districts like Junagadh (1,293), Surendranagar (1,195) and Kutch (912) have over the years shown a dismal trend of atrocities increasing.

Kaushik Parmar, a dalit rights activist who filed the RTI, said that the figures are alarming because they bust the myth that atrocities do not occur in urban areas.

"Districts with higher number of atrocity cases against dalits should be declared atrocity-prone zones and the government should take extra measures to stop offences against dalits," Parmar said. "These are the registered cases, but the actual numbers of caste-based offences will be higher," Parmar added.

Jignesh Mevani, convner of Una Dalit Atyachar Ladat Samiti (UDALS), echoed the same views, saying: "Urbanisation, globalization and culture of malls and multiplexes gives the impression that society has become modern, but caste-based violence is also a reality. The common notion is that atrocity cases are a rural phenomena bursts when caste-based violence like the Una and Thangadh incidents occur."