CHENNAI, June 15: Out of 1,500 cases registered, four convictions have been secured in five years. This is the record of the Tamil Nadu's Protection of Civil Rights cells, set up in 1989 to prevent atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST).

In the past five years, 750 cases of atrocities against Adi Dravidars have been registered annually by the State police. Twenty persons belonging to the community were killed last year and 10 of its women raped. During the first quarter of this year alone, 158 crimes against Adi Dravidars have been reported. These include the brutal killing of three and the rapes of two women.

As many as 118 villages in the State are prone to atrocities and 77 villages are always tension-ridden, while in 65 villages, Adi Dravidars were subjected to violence this year. It was to prevent precisely such incidents that the Government had established PCR cells in all the State's districts to enforce the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

But, as Adi Dravidar Department officials lament, the authorities seem to have abandoned the cells since. The PCR wing was headed by an inspector general of police till two years ago. Now the post has been downgraded and handed over to a deputy inspector general (DIG). Moreover, the department has seen three DIGs in the past two years. One of these reshuffles came just last month, when caste violence was at its height in the State.

To make matters worse, rues an officer, ``The DIG here does not even have a supporting unit of policemen to investigate crimes reported against SC/STs''. The PCR cell in each district is headed only by an inspector of police.

According to reliable sources, most police personnel come to the cells either because they are facing action for delinquency or inefficiency, or as a ``punishment'' for refusing to toe the line of their political bosses.

``With the PCR cells seen as a dumping ground of bad elements in the Police Department,'' asks a senior official, ``how do you expect us to perform well?''

The DIG who heads the PCR cell functions from Chennai and he has no police personnel to independently probe charges of even negligence of duty against the district cell personnel.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.