Latest news with #Dalit
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
SP MPs urge Centre to intervene in closure, merger of schools in UP
Lucknow: Samajwadi Party MPs on Wednesday raised the issue of closure of 26,012 primary schools and merger of another 5,000 schools by UP govt in Parliament and sought Centre's intervention to protect the right to education of the poor. The party also announced that it will adopt the route of an agitation to oppose this move of the state govt. SP MP from Azamgarh Dharmendra Yadav said right to education was introduced by the Centre hence the Union govt cannot shy away from its responsibility of ensuring the poor are not deprived of this right. He said by closing and merging thousands of primary schools the state govt will deprive the poor of the opportunity to send their children to schools. "In Uttar Pradesh, 26012 primary schools have been closed, 5000 of them have been merged, and appointments of over 2 lakh teachers have been stalled. Children from poor families and those from the PDA community are being deprived of the right to education. At the same time more than 27000 liquor stores are opened. This needs to be addressed," Dharmendra said. Apart from Dharmendra Yadav, other SP MPs including Anand Bhadauria, Naresh Uttam Patel, Lalji Verma, Neeraj Maurya and Priya Saroj also raised the issue. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Villas For Sale in Dubai Might Surprise You Dubai villas | search ads Get Deals Undo The MPs pointed out that the Union govt also contributes towards the budget for education in every state hence the Centre cannot keep mum on the issue and must intervene. They said UP govt was not abiding by the law on right to education passed by the Centre. Children from the poor sections of the society including the Dalit, tribals and those from the backward classes were being denied their right to education. People of the state will not accept this, they said.
NDTV
3 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Cop Father Of Man Who Allegedly Killed Dalit Techie In Tamil Nadu Arrested
Chennai: In a major breakthrough in the alleged honour killing of Dalit techie Kavin Selvaganesh, the Tamil Nadu police have arrested sub-inspector Saravanan, the father of the main accused Surjith, who had earlier been arrested for allegedly murdering Kavin for being in a relationship with his sister. This arrest comes amid sustained protests by the victim's family and public outrage over what they see as a premeditated caste-based murder involving police complicity. Kavin, a 23-year-old software engineer from the Scheduled Castes community, was murdered in Tirunelveli district, reportedly by Surjith, who was upset about his sister's relationship with Kavin. The woman is a Siddha doctor belonging to a dominant upper caste in the hierarchy and worked at a local Siddha centre, where the incident unfolded. Surjith, allegedly caught on CCTV taking Kavin away on his bike, was arrested soon after the murder. Police invoked sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, charged him for murder, and later slapped the Goonda Act on him. As the investigation progressed, suspicion grew over the role of his parents - both serving police officers - in abetting or orchestrating the crime. Now, sub-inspector Saravanan, Surjith's father, has been arrested for his alleged role in the murder. The case has been transferred to the CB-CID to ensure impartiality, and both Saravanan and his wife had earlier been suspended from duty. However, Kavin's family has refused to accept his body, demanding the arrest of Saravanan's wife, also a sub-inspector, alleging she too was involved. Actor-politician Kamal Haasan condemned the killing, calling for stringent punishment and a united political front to fight casteism. This case has sparked widespread debate in Tamil Nadu on caste, honour crimes, and police accountability. As the CB-CID investigates further, the demand for justice continues to grow louder - not just from Kavin's family, but from citizens and political voices across the state.
The Hindu
4 hours ago
- The Hindu
India's police must get out of Dirty Harry's shadow
Imagine a crime scene, where two detectives arrive. The first person is Sherlock Holmes, who is calm, meticulous and relentlessly logical. He sees what others overlook, asks things that others miss, and lets logic and evidence guide every step. He knows that the truth cannot be extracted by force and that it must be uncovered through careful, patient investigation. The other person is Dirty Harry, gruff, impatient and contemptuous of rules. He does not investigate; he intimidates. He does not gather evidence; he extracts confessions. For him, justice is about speed, not accuracy, even if it leaves behind broken bodies and ruined lives. These are not just fictional characters. They represent two conflicting visions of policing in India. The question is this. In the fight against crime, do we want a Sherlock Holmes or a Dirty Harry in our police stations? A culture of impunity The custodial death of Ajith Kumar, a 27-year-old temple guard, in June, in Tamil Nadu, is a grim reminder of the perils of the Dirty Harry-style of policing. The case (which involved missing jewellery from a car) happened just months after the Tamil Nadu Police Commission had recommended, among other things, a series of reforms to curb custodial torture. According to a 2023 Lok Sabha reply, 687 people had died in police custody across India between 2018-19 and 2022-23, which is an average of two to three deaths every week. The data showed that these States had the highest numbers — Gujarat (81), Maharashtra (80), Madhya Pradesh (50), Bihar (47), Uttar Pradesh (41), West Bengal (40), and Tamil Nadu (36). Official figures conceal more than they reveal. Many custodial deaths are quietly labelled as suicides, accidents, or sudden illnesses. Torture often occurs off the record — beyond lockups and CCTV surveillance. In Ajith Kumar's case, it reportedly happened in police vans, abandoned buildings, a village tank bed, and in a cow shed behind a temple. Custodial violence overwhelmingly targets the daily-wage worker, the migrant, the slum dweller, the Dalit, and the tribal. So, torture is not just bad policing. It is structural injustice that reflects and reinforces the entrenched hierarchies of caste, class and power. Torture persists due to inadequate training especially for the public-facing constabulary that makes up 90% of the police force alongside poor infrastructure, pressure to deliver quick results, and weak institutional oversight. Disciplinary action is rare and criminal convictions rarer still. More troubling is societal tolerance of custodial violence, which normalises the abuse, turning crime into the routine and impunity into unofficial policy. In D.K. Basu (1996), the Supreme Court of India had laid down detailed safeguards against custodial torture. In K.S. Puttaswamy (2017), it reaffirmed dignity and bodily autonomy as fundamental rights. Yet, torture remains rampant. The Law Commission of India's 273rd Report (2017) urged Parliament to enact a standalone anti-torture law, but no such law exists. India has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Torture. In 2025, India was ranked a 'high-risk' country in the Global Torture Index — a searing indictment we can no longer ignore. On research and real world examples The case against torture is not just moral or legal. It is scientific. Torture is often mythologised as a necessary evil — the quick fix when time is short and lives are at stake. Films and television shows often portray a suspect cracking under pressure, revealing the truth just in time. But decades of scientific research and real-world evidence tell a very different story. In Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation (2015), neuroscientist Shane O'Mara explains that torture impairs the brain's prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, the very regions essential for memory and clarity. Victims become disoriented, incoherent, and cognitively impaired; they will say anything, even lie, just to end the pain. Experience bears this out. During the Algerian War (1954-62), French forces used torture extensively, only to find that much of the intelligence gathered from Algerian insurgents was useless or led to dead ends. In 2007, the International Committee of the Red Cross found that detainees from CIA 'black sites' had confessed only to end their suffering, producing false or unusable information. In the United States, the Innocence Project used DNA evidence to overturn over 375 wrongful convictions, many based on coerced confessions. In Ajith Kumar's case, the victim 'confessed' to hiding jewels in a cowshed — not because it was true, but because he wanted the beatings to stop. The CIA's now-infamous 'enhanced interrogation techniques' — waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation — were debunked in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Report (2014). The 525-page partially redacted summary (from a 6,700-page report), based on classified CIA documents, concluded that these methods failed to yield actionable intelligence against al Qaeda. Worse, the time wasted chasing false leads had diverted attention from actual threats. So, what works? According to a Netflix documentary 'American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden', the vital lead (the courier who led the U.S. to bin Laden) was uncovered through good, old-fashioned detective work — non-coercive intelligence gathering, surveillance, and methodical analysis. After the wrongful conviction of six men in the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, the U.K. abandoned confession-based policing. It adopted the PEACE model (Preparation and Planning, Engage and Explain, Account, Closure, and Evaluation) that focused on building rapport and trust with a suspect, open-ended questioning, active listening, and video recording of the interviews. This model reduced false confessions, improved conviction accuracy and restored public trust. Countries such as Norway, Canada and New Zealand have adopted it with similar success. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has endorsed it. Post-9/11, the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), a joint initiative of the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Defence, undertook extensive research on interrogation techniques. Its peer-reviewed studies confirmed that non-coercive, rapport-based methods consistently outperformed torture in producing accurate, timely, and actionable intelligence. In Norway, far-right terrorist Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, was interrogated without threats or coercion. The police's calm, professional approach led to a full confession and valuable insights into extremist networks, demonstrating that even the most heinous crimes do not justify abandoning legal principles. In the U.S., Najibullah Zazi, who plotted the 2009 New York subway bombing, cooperated with the FBI after being treated with respect. His detailed disclosures helped dismantle a wider terror network. Holmes, not Harry The core issue is that this is not a debate about policing. It is a test of our democratic maturity. The law must protect the most vulnerable, not brutalise them. Every custodial beating is not just a wound on the body of a citizen. It is a stain on the soul of the state. India must immediately ratify the UN Convention Against Torture and enact a standalone anti-torture law. All States should embed the PEACE model into police training, and declare zero tolerance for custodial abuse. When Sherlock Holmes's methods succeed in reality — not just in fiction — why should India cling to Dirty Harry's shadow?
NDTV
7 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Tamil Nadu Dalit Techie Murder: Case Transferred To Crime Branch Amid Outrage
Chennai: The Tamil Nadu police have transferred the case involving the alleged honour killing of Dalit techie Kavin Selvaganesh to the Crime Branch - CID for a "fair and independent investigation". The move follows massive public outrage over his murder, allegedly by the woman's brother who opposed the inter-caste relationship. The woman's brother and main accused Surjith was arrested and remanded on the same day of the crime Tamil Nadu DGP Shankar Jiwal confirmed that a murder case has been registered and sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act have been invoked. The police have also invoked the Goondas Act against him. The accused's parents, both serving police sub-inspectors, have also been booked for murder and suspended from service to ensure a free and transparent investigation. "Preliminary investigation reveals the murder was over the relationship between the accused man's sister and the victim," the DGP said in a statement. The murder took place outside a Siddha centre in Tirunelveli where Kavin's grandfather was undergoing treatment and his girlfriend also worked. CCTV footage reportedly shows Surjith taking Kavin away on his motorbike shortly before the attack. The techie was later found brutally murdered. Tensions have flared in the region. Kavin's family has refused to accept his body after post-mortem, demanding the immediate arrest and remand of the cop couple, whom they believe played a role in orchestrating the killing. "Surjith has been booked as A1. Our only demand is his parents ought to be remanded. With that demand, we protested the other day and we've not collected the body. This is a clear case of honour killing. There's provision to remand them based on the FIR," said Selvam, a relative of the victim. Rajya Sabha MP and Makkal Needhi Maiam chief Kamal Haasan condemned the killing, calling it shocking and urged all political parties to unite in a fight against caste-based violence. "Stringent punishment must be ensured. Casteism must be eradicated through collective political will," he said in a post on X. This murder has reignited calls for stricter enforcement of laws against caste crimes and honour killings in Tamil Nadu, a state often seen as a champion of social justice. Many are also demanding a stringent law for honour killings.
The Hindu
9 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Activist calls for special law to prevent honour killings in the State
Human rights activist and Executive Director of People's Watch, Henri Tiphagne, has urged the State government to immediately convene the Legislative Assembly and enact a special law to prevent honour killings in Tamil Nadu. Addressing the media in the district on Wednesday (July 30, 2025), Mr. Tiphagne referred to the recent murder of Kavin Selvaganesh (27) in Tirunelveli, calling it an instance of honour killing. He alleged that police personnel were among the accused and hence their arrest was being delayed by the police department itself. 'Anyone involved must be arrested immediately, and the case should be expedited to ensure swift punishment,' he said. He pointed out that several political parties, women's organisations, and Dalit groups have been protesting against honour killings, and reiterated the need for a special law to effectively curb such crimes. 'Existing laws, including those meant to prevent atrocities, are inadequate. Only a special law can offer a lasting solution,' he emphasised. Mr. Tiphagne also strongly condemned the recent murder of a High Court lawyer in Dharapuram, Tiruppur district. 'The victim, who was a person with disability, was brutally murdered, and two other lawyers were also assaulted. This heinous crime appears to have been committed with the cooperation of the police,' he alleged. He demanded a special investigation under the supervision of the Inspector General of Police, Western Zone, and said that a Deputy Superintendent of Police from Tiruppur should head the probe. 'The State government must take the incident seriously, provide adequate protection to witnesses, and take immediate action,' he said. 'The Chief Minister, who has consistently voiced support for the rights of persons with disabilities, must intervene to ensure justice is delivered in this case,' he added.
