4,311 cases pending in SC/ST police stations in Bihar

Even as the Nitish Kumar government has laid thrust on justice for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, cases relating to atrocities on SC/ST are increasing and a good number of them are pending in police stations. "The cases are piling up because of the slow pace of their disposal,'' officials claim. According to official records available at the state police headquarters here, 4311 cases lodged under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 are still pending with different SC/ST police stations up to May this year. The then National SC/ST Commission chairman Buta Singh, during his visit to Bihar on April 6, 2010, had expressed serious concern over the growing number of cases of atrocities, noting that hardly two per cent of them reach logical conclusion. While the number of cases of atrocities and repression were reported to be 3,723 in 2008, it rose to 5,129 in 2009 but then declined to 3,551 in 2010. State Additional Director-General of Police (Crime Investigation Department) A S Nimbran said there are seven to eight such districts where 50 per cent of cases of atrocities are pending and these are normally the districts where very less number of cases are registered every year. Nimbran confided that there are 200 cases of atrocities and repression being registered in Bihar every month. There are 239, 196, 186, 180, 167, 141 and 121 cases pending in the districts of Muzaffarpur, Saran, Begusarai, Motihari, Gaya, Patna and Gopalganj districts, respectively, he said.