New Delhi: More than one lakh cases of atrocities against persons belonging to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) were reported across the country in the period between 2001 and 2012 -- when both BJP-led NDA and Congress-led UPA were in power.
Such cases saw an increase across the country during the 12-year period with as many as 1,22,458 instances reported under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, according to a report by some Delhi-based NGOs.
A total of 13,113 such cases -- the highest during the period -- were reported across the country in 2001 when the NDA was in power, the NGOs said in their report based on National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.
In 2012 when the UPA was in power, there were as many as 12,576 cases of atrocities against persons belonging to SCs and STs.
"The total number of reported cases stood around 8,000 in 2004 when the UPA took over in the middle of the year. Since then there has been a continuing trend of increase in the number of reported cases every year," said the report prepared jointly by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights and National Dalit Movement for Justice, New Delhi.
There was a significant downward trend only between 2009-2010 when the number of such cases fell from around 11,400 to around 10,400. The trend showed upward movement for the remaining years up to 2012, it said.
"The steepest fall in the number of reported cases was in 2003 at 25 per cent during the last year of the NDA regime. However, the number of reported crimes rose steeply in 2008 by 16.7 per cent under the UPA regime," the report said.
