Police social justice tea parties in 72 villages
Inspector General of Police, Social Justice-Human Rights and Director of Friends of Police, Pradeep V Philip (fourth from left), inaugurating the students’ wing of Friends of Police unit at the CSI Bishop Appasamy College of Arts and Science in Coimbatore on Tuesday.Social justice wing of the police had so far conducted social justice tea parties in about 72 villages across the State (i.e. two villages per district) to end untouchability practised through twin tumbler system in tea shops, said Inspector-General of Police, Social Justice and Human Rights, Pradeep V Philip on Tuesday. Mr. Philip was talking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference on social justice and human rights and the inauguration of the students wing of the Friends of Police (FoP) of CSI Bishop Appasasamy College of Arts and Science.He said the objective of such social justice tea parties was only to impress on people on the need to cast off the age-old practice of untouchability by initiating the process of equilibrium thinking.He said a proposal had been sent to the Government of India to allocate Rs. 70 lakh for social justice tea parties to reach two lakh people per district at the rate of two villages per district and the plan would be to cover one crore villagers.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Philip visited Jahirnaickenpalayam, Seeranur, Narasipuram villages in Alandurai and Thondamuthur areas where there had been complaints/reports of the twin tumbler practice.After inspection, interaction and social justice tea party with the villagers, he dismissed those reports/complaints as totally false. He dubbed the complaints as the handiwork of certain interested groups who wanted to justify their existence by raking up such issues.Even a small boy who had earlier preferred a complaint against the practice had retracted saying that he had never seen the system being practised not had he experienced it.
Mr. Philip, who was also the Director of the FoP, said the police had plans to increase the strength of the FoP 10 times.He said the present strength was three lakh and in the next one year it would be either doubled or tripled.On cases relating to Prevention of Atrocities Against SC/ST Act, Mr. Philip said 90 per cent of the cases pertained to verbal abuse. On complaints of certain groups misusing or abusing the legal provision for extortion, he said officers had been sensitised to the need of differentiating a genuine complaint from a bogus one and utmost care was taken to ensure that innocent people were not penalised through the abuse of the legal provision meant for ensuring social justice.The conference was attended by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) P. Nagarajan, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Social Justice CID, M. Ramasamy, FoP co-ordinator S.Senthil Kumar, principal of the college Mrinalini R David, head of social works department J. Immanuel Janagan.
