Hate crimes & Delhi Police
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 22, 2014 -

Despite the efforts being made by the Government to end racial discrimination and associated violence against people from Northeast India in other parts of the country, it is really unfortunate that there has been not let up to such racial attacks.

The latest incident in which 30-year old Shaloni of Tungjoy village in Senapati district, Manipur, who earlier worked in a BPO, was beaten to death by a group of goons in South Delhi’s Kotla Mubarakpur area in the wee hours of Monday without any provocation (Delhi’s Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) BS Jaiswal himself has made it clear that there was no provocation on the part of the deceased) has once against brought in focus the growing menace of hate crimes and the deep rooted racist attitude that some mainland people, if not all, have towards people of Northeast origin in general who are staying in other parts of the country in search of better education or job.

This incident has also come just days after another youth from Manipur was found dead drowning in a drain under mysterious circumstances as well as within days of submitting the report of the MP Bezbaruah committee constituted by the Union Home Ministry in February this year to look into the various kinds of concerns of the persons hailing from the North Eastern States, who are living in different parts of the country, especially the Metropolitan areas, and to suggest suitable remedial measures which could be taken by the Government.

Although such unwarranted attack on people of Northeast who are forced to go out of their home States or towns in search of better prospects for jobs and education and the inaction of the police are always unfortunate, what was really appreciating in the latest incident is the swiftness of the police action in arresting at least three persons out of the five involved in the fatal attack.

This time, the police was also quick enough to seize the CCTV footage from the site of the crime and analysed the call records of the victim to verify whether the attackers were known to him or not.

Along with promptly registering a case of murder under section 302 of IPC and forming a special team comprising additional DCP (south) P S Kushwah, STF chief Rajender Singh, the special staff in-charge Akhilesh Yadav, Delhi police is also probing all angles in the case as there was no sudden provocation in the fatal assault.

All such prompt actions of the Delhi police were something one could never expect in the past.

So, one could conclude that the report of MP Bezbaruah committee, which has recommended various measures for ensuring the safety and protection of the people from Northeast, does have some bearing in bringing about this much needed changing in the attitude of the Delhi police towards dealing with cases involving people of Northeast origin.

On this positive note, we look forward to Delhi police with the hope that the case would be cracked and justice done to the victim sooner than expected.

In fact, many of the hate crimes in the past would not have been so much hateful, had the Delhi police been so energetic in performance of their duties.