Caste Discrimination against India's “Untouchables” - Human Rights ...

example, the government’s Annual Report on the Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 found
that 30,022 cases were registered against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under
the Act in 2001 and 27,894 were registered in 2002. 187 As staggering as these statistics are,
they represent only a fraction of the violence committed against Dalits. A number of factors,
including lack of police cooperation, fear of reprisals, and difficulty in gaining access to the
judiciary contribute to a reluctance or inability on the part of Dalits to report crimes against
them. 188 Systematic non-registration or improper registration of atrocities also accounts for
under-reporting (see Section V(A)(1)(a)(vi)). Much like cases of police abuse against Dalits,
attacks by private actors often take the form of collective punishment, whereby entire
communities or villages are punished for the perceived transgressions of individuals who
seek to alter village customs or demand their rights. 189 Retaliatory attacks for such
challenges are rife (see Box 4).
187
Annual Report on the Prevention of Atrocities Act for the years 2001-2002, pp. 9-10.
188
Human Rights Watch, Broken People, p. 41.
189
Ibid., p. 29.
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