AAP STANDS WITH SC/ST COMMUNITIES, VOWS TO UPHOLD CONSTITUTIONAL ETHOS: CHEEMA
Punjab E News: Launching a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for fostering an atmosphere of blatant caste-based discrimination and atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) across the states they govern, Punjab Finance Minister and senior AAP leader Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema on Friday pointed to the horrifying revelations contained in the ‘Final Note’ written by late Haryana-cadre IPS officer Y. Puran Kumar, which clearly details years of “Continued blatant Caste based discrimination, targeted mental harassment, public humiliation and atrocities by concerned senior officers of Haryana.”
In a press communiqué issued here, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema directly quoted the late IPS officer’s detailed final note, which names multiple senior IPS and IAS officers and alleges a “concerted conspiracy to continue with caste-based discrimination, public humiliation, targeted mental harassment and atrocities.” “The gravity of the situation under BJP rule is beyond appalling. We have seen repeated instances of rising crimes against SCs and STs in BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, as documented in national crime records,” said Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema.
“But what is truly shocking is that the BJP’s anti-Dalit sentiment does not spare even the highest echelons of public service. The tragic case of the late IPS officer, who meticulously documented years of caste-based harassment, humiliation, and conspiracy by his seniors in the Haryana Police and administration, a BJP-governed state, is a damning indictment of their moral and administrative failure”, added Cheema.
Cabinet Minister Cheema asserted that the very fact that a senior serving IPS officer was driven to his death, leaving behind an eight-page document that reads as a litany of caste-based persecution, denial of entitlements, malicious complaints, and public humiliation in a BJP-ruled state is a national shame. He said that if officers at the IG rank are not safe and are subjected to such inhuman treatment, what hope do the common Dalit citizens in these states have?
The Finance Minister Cheema also connected this incident to the recent instances of attacks and caste-based incitement targeting even the Chief Justice of India, a member of the SC community, which further highlights the dangerous anti-Dalit atmosphere fueled by the BJP’s politics.
“The BJP’s silence on this entire episode, particularly the failure of the Haryana government to take swift and transparent action against the officers named in the IPS officer’s dying declaration, exposes their hypocrisy on social justice”, said Cheema while adding that the attack on the dignity of a serving Chief Justice and the systematic destruction of the career and life of a senior IPS officer based on his caste are two sides of the same coin: the BJP’s deeply rooted anti-Dalit agenda.
The Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema demanded immediate suspension and arrest of all officers named in the late IPS officer’s ‘Final Note’ under the relevant sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and abetment to suicide, and a time-bound, independent, and high-level judicial inquiry into all the allegations of caste-based discrimination raised in the officer’s letter. He said that the BJP led Union Government must break its silence and clearly state its policy on protecting SC/ST citizens from caste-based atrocities. “The Aam Aadmi Party stands unequivocally with the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. We will not allow the BJP’s venomous politics of caste discrimination to destroy the Constitutional ethos of this nation. Justice must be delivered in this case, and accountability must be fixed at the highest levels,” he concluded.
