The Supreme Court has directed the committee constituted by the Centre to monitor complaints of violence and harassment against people from the Northeast region living in other parts of the country and recommend necessary changes in law for their protection by December 18.
The committee dealt with nine cases of violence and harassment reported across the country against northeasterns over the past one year and the action taken by the police in the respective states. The bench was informed that in some cases, the complaints could not be acted upon as the complainant was untraceable. To avoid delay in pursuing the complaints in future, the court held, “Henceforth, measures shall be put in place to immediately record the full details, including addresses, of the complainants as and when complaints of any harassment are received and necessary further action shall be initiated without fail. The instances of hate crimes and racial discrimination against northeasterns still continues.
Because of cultural or racial differences is unacceptable, the top court while hearing the present case early this year had observed that targeting people. In an order passed on October 14, the top court further directed the committee to ensure that in future, victims’ statements are recorded soon after the incident to avoid delay in tracing them. Posting the matter on December 18, the court went through an affidavit filed by the Centre giving details of the proceedings of the Monitoring Committee that met on September 8. Going by the minutes of the meeting held last month, only three out of the 11-member committee attended the meeting physically while the remaining connected virtually through video-conferencing.
The court also pulled up the committee for showing lack of “seriousness” in attending the meetings.
In December last year, Anjel Chakma, a MBA student was attacked along with his brother while they were shopping in Selaqui area of Dehradun in Uttarakhand.
One of the mandates assigned to the committee was to ensure implementation of the Bezbaruah committee recommendations. However, though the issue of law reforms to prevent racial discrimination of Northeast people was discussed, no concrete recommendations have been made by the committee so far. In 2014, following the death of Nido Tania, a student from Arunachal Pradesh, in Delhi, the Centre set up a committee headed by former IAS officer MK Bezbaruah, that recommended changes in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) among other set of reforms concerning issues faced by northeastern people. The Monitoring Committee was constituted by the Centre in 2016 on a PIL proceeding filed by Karma Dorjee.
