Activists of the Punjab Ambedkar Sena Mool Nivasi today staged a protest against the "dilution" of provisions of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Led by the organisation's state president Harbhjan Suman, the activists first assembled at Ambedkar Park in Hargobindnagar and held demonstration. They then took out a protest march and converged at National Highway 1 where they burnt an effigy of the prime minister.
The protesters presented a memorandum, addressed to the President, to sub-divisional magistrate Jyoti Bala Mattu.
In the memorandum, they requested the President to put a moratorium on a recent Supreme Court verdict on the Act.
A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court took note of the rampant misuse of the stringent Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against government servants and held that there shall be no immediate arrest on any complaint filed under the law.
Before arresting a public servant under the Act, a preliminary probe by an officer not below the rank of deputy superintendent is a must, the court said.
Suman said, "The Modi government intentionally kept studied silence on the apex court's notices given to central government on the Act before it gave its directions. The central government neither pursued it in the court through its Attorney General. It proved that the Modi government was anti-Dalit and was conspiring to scrap the Act.
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