The Punjab State Commission for Scheduled Castes today took serious note of two heart-wrenching news items depicting the plight of SCs in two villages of Punjab and summoned Senior Superintendent of Police Batala and Khanna for June 9 besides directing them to produce detailed reports on the issues of villages Sakhowal and Gosal respectively.Disclosing this here today the spokesperson of the Commission said that in village Sakhowal, SCs have been barred by a group of so called upper castes to use the village crematorium for performing last rites of the deceased belonging to SC community. The SCs of village have been forced to take the dead bodies to the adjoining village’s crematorium to perform their last rites.
In the other issue of ex-communication of SCs in village Gosal of Khanna, the SCs have been forced to bite the dust just to subdue them to surrender their right in the village common land. The Spokesman said that tension has been prevailing in this village on the issue of auction of village common land. Irked by the claim of SCs over village common land, the upper castes had given a call to the natives of village through a speaker of Gurdwara not to have any kind of social ties with the SCs besides maintaining ex-communication and boycott the community.
In a press communiqué Chairman SC Commission Mr. Rajesh Bagha described the both incidents very unfortunate and unconstitutional. He said that these kinds of undignified acts, which results in the ruptures in the social fabric of the state, could not be tolerated. He said that the commission has sent a communiqué to both SSPs of Batala and Khanna have been directed to submit detailed report before the Court of Commission to be held on June 9, 2015. He also directed SSPs to ensure peace, communal concord and fraternity amongst different sections of the society so as to preserve hard-earned peace in the state.