Chandigarh, May 20 (IANS) Taking notice of an incident in which a 12-year-old boy was thrashed in Punjab's Malout town, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), on the orders of its Chairman Vijay Sampla, on Friday issued a notice to the state and sought an action-taken report by May 26.
As per information received by the NCSC, a Dalit woman in Malout in Sri Muktsar Sahib district alleged a non-Dalit man thrashed her son and later uploaded the crime video on the social media.
"One day, he (the accused) visited my house, stripped my 12-year-old son and thrashed him brutally. He also shot a video of the incident that he made it viral," the woman said in a complaint.
She said the police did not help her even when the accused threatened her inside a police station.
The commission asked the Divisional Commissioner (Ferozepur division), the Deputy Commissioner of Sri Muktsar Sahib), the Inspector General of Police (Faridkot range) and the Senior Superintendent of Police to investigate the case and to submit the report within seven days.
Sampla cautioned the officers that if the action-taken report is not received within the timeframe, the commission might exercise the powers of the civil court conferred on it under Article 338 of the Constitution and issue summon for personal appearance before it in New Delhi.
Holding the Punjab government squarely responsible for the "gross security lapse" during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Punjab, that eventually led to cancellation of all his programmes, former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday demanded dismissal of the government and imposition of President's rule.
With the spike in Covid-19 cases, Punjab on Tuesday imposed statewide night curfew daily from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and ordered closure of all educational institutions till January 15.
The accused, identified as Ashish Kumar, tied his wife Ranjan Devi and son Vaibhav to the bed and set them on fire at his house in Mayurwa locality, which comes under the Triveniganj police station.
Nearly 100 students and resident doctors of the Government Medical College in Patiala in Punjab have tested positive for Covid-19, officials said on Tuesday. A retirement party and New Year Eve's party held on the college campus without following appropriate Covid-19 behaviour is blamed for alarming spike in the cases.
With 192 new cases of highly transmissible Covid variant Omicron detected in the last 24 hours, India's Omicron tally on Tuesday rose to 1,892 cases. Maharashtra and Delhi continue to be the worst-hit states with this new variant.
Badal in a statement here listed five major issues on which he said a prime ministerial package would lend credence and respectability to Modi's visit to Punjab on January 5. The former CM also drew the PM's attention to thousands of Sikh families awaiting justice for the massacre of 1984.
