Our Correspondent

Nurpur, May 9

The Himachal Pradesh Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has taken exception to inaction of the police in an assault case in which Balbir Chand, a Dalit of Geora village, was beaten up and injured allegedly by a group of youths belonging to the upper castes on April 27.

Mr Purn Chand, general secretary of the state BSP, who visited the village yesterday, alleged in a press note that the police, notwithstanding Dalit victimisation, had not lodged the FIR under the Scheduled Castes Atrocity Act 1989 and tried to hush up the matter by registering a simple case of beating under political pressure.

He said the Dalits had also met the local Subdivisional Magistrate in this regard but even then the police had failed to take any action against the culprits causing a lot of resentment among the Dalits in the area. There was a sense of insecurity among the members of the Scheduled Castes in the village. The BSP leader urged Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal to intervene and order a high-level probe into the incident