HC seeks Centre’s suggestions on hate crimes against NE people

PTI
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 14

The Delhi High Court today asked the Centre to give its suggestions to curb alleged hate crimes and racial discrimination against the people from Northeastern states. A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw direction to the Centre came after senior advocate Upmanyu Hazarika, who has been appointed the amicus curiae, informed the court that the attacks on such persons have not stopped and government needs to make some serious legal reform.
Agreeing to amicus submission, the bench said the government has to “play a proactive role” and give suggestions to the court on how to deal with such circumstances.
The court has fixed the matter for further hearing on April 8.
During the hearing Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appearing for Ministry, said “the action-taken report (ATR) process will go on and it will be filed, but the court should understand that this kind of attack are sometime not racial.” To this, the court said that suggestions were required in the matter.
Earlier, the Centre filed a detailed ATR in pursuance of the findings of the 11-member panel, headed by M P Bezbaruah, on this issue.
“We have dealt with each and every aspect of the findings of the Bezbaruah committee and have come out with the proposed actions,” the Centre had said.
The Centre had set up the Bezbaruah panel after a 19-year-old Arunachal Pradesh student Nido Tania was killed in an alleged racial attack in Lajpat Nagar locality here in January 2014.
The panel had submitted its 80-page report to Home Ministry saying the national capital was ahead of the rest of the country in “racial discrimination” against people from the Northeastern region.
As per the report, over two lakh people have migrated to Delhi from Northeastern states between 2005 and 2013 and about 86 per cent of them have faced some form of racial discrimination.
The people from the Northeast faced more problems in Delhi as compared to other metros like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata, the report had said.
The court had earlier expressed anguish over continuing incidents of violence against people from the Northeast despite its orders and sought a report from the government on the steps taken to curb “the menace plaguing the society”.
Delhi police had told the court that a Special Police Unit (SPU) has been set up to deal with such crimes and the SPU has been effective as required actions were being taken promptly.
The court had taken suo motu cognisance of media reports about the death of Tania, son of an Arunachal MLA.
Later a PIL was filed in the court after the death of a Manipuri youth in south Delhi on July 20, 2014 following an assault by five persons.