Panel to probe atrocities against Kuravans

VILLUPURAM: The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has constituted a committee headed by its assistant director (Chennai) P Ramasamy to study the problems faced by the Kuravan community with specific reference to the police atrocities against the community in Tamil Nadu.
The commission has also nominated Chennai-based advocate P V P Ajeetha and a Villupuram-based social worker V A Rameshnathan as the members and directed the committee to submit its report before December 15.
The committee will study the alleged bias and subjective handling of cases involving Kuravan community by the police and suggest remedial measures including relief and rehabilitation. It will also focus on the violations committed against children and women of the community and ensure educational facilities for them.
The commission directed the committee to gather sufficient secondary data on atrocities and to undertake random inquiries into the reported incidents. It also insisted that the committee members record the statements of the victims before finalizing the report. The commission in September this year summoned the director general of police, Tamil Nadu to appear before commission's member P M Kamalamma for discussions regarding complaints of police atrocities on scheduled caste people at its headquarters in New Delhi following a complaint from the Tamil Nadu Kuravar Makkal Sangam (TNKMS).
TNKMS submitted a representation highlighting 28 cases of police atrocities on Kuravan community people since 1993 including rape, custodial torture, illegal arrest and detention, custodial deaths, deaths in judicial custody and fake encounters to the commission's member during a camp at Chennai in September 2. The cases include illegal detention of a 14-year-old boy and brutal assault by Thiruthangal policemen in Virudhunagar district in which the boy lost his right eye in 2014 and rape of a minor girl by policemen in Tiruvarur, Ariyalur, Pudukottai and Thanjavur districts, in 2009 and 2010.
Kuravans, an underprivileged community with 10 lakh members, form the sixth largest scheduled caste population in Tamil Nadu. They are also living in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. But the community has been demanding that the Union government notify them as Scheduled Tribes (ST). Basically hunters, they of late started eking out an living by making articles of household out of bamboo and palm leaves following a ban on hunting. They are also involved in rearing pigs. Their traditional professions also include tattooing and fortune telling using parrots.