Delhi Records 119 Cases of Abuse Against Religious Minorities in One Year

NEW DELHI – The Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) registered 119 complaints between July 2019 and June 2020. These include alleged crimes against religious minorities as well as cases of lynching, harassments, discriminations, police brutality and desecration of religious places, says annual report of the Commission.

“These were either on the basis of complaints received or based on suo motu actions by the Commission. This does not represent the actual number of cases as some cases of similar nature were placed in a single file like Urdu/Punjabi teachers issue, assessment of government schemes, awareness camps, scholarships etc., while some complaints were dealt with directly by the Chairman and Members to solve matters amicably before a case was registered. In most cases this strategy, which lightened the burden of the Commission, paid results,” noted the minority panel in its report released on Thursday.

The report offers a summary of the Commission’s work during the period covered (2019-20) and offers a glimpse of the kind of problems faced by minorities in the National Capital Region.

The annual report is part of four reports that the DMC released at a press conference addressed by its chairman Zafarul Islam Khan and members. The three-year tenure of the current team ends on July 19.The reports have already been presented by the team to Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, Lt. Governor Anil Baijal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and all Ministers of the Delhi government as well as Speaker of Delhi Legislative Assembly.

“Much relieved after a hectic three-year tenure at Delhi Minorities Commission. Today was my last working day though the tenure will effectively end on 19th July. Before leaving office this evening, all issues were sorted out and all files were dealt with. We did not leave behind,” tweeted Zafarul Islam Khan.

Besides the annual report, others were: Report of the Fact-Finding committee into North-East Delhi riots; Report on Muslim women in North-East district; and Report on Survivors of anti-Sikh riots.

It is a statutory requirement of DMC to present to the Government of Delhi its annual report along with its recommendations which are to be considered by government and later presented to the Delhi Legislative Assembly with an action taken report in accordance with the Commission’s Act. This report is available online here: https://archive.org/details/dmc-annual-report-2019-20_202007.

According to the report, maximum number of complaints (48) was registered with the Delhi Police. Other complaints included, 14 with education department of the Delhi government; 8 revenue related; and 4 related with national universities (JMI, DU, JNU related).

The Commission, as per the report, took many significant steps which have become part of national discourse. In this regard, it cites incidences such as police targeting students of Jamia Millia Islamia during anti-CAA protests, northeast Delhi’s anti-Muslim violence and subsequent witch hunt of the community members, targeting of Tablighi Jamaat preachers, cases of lynching and hate crimes, suppression of anti-CAA protests and attacks on religious palaces. On all such occasion, the DMC worked pro-actively and reminded the authorities of their constitutional obligations.

The report includes a survey about the representation of minorities in government and public sector jobs in Delhi, which is the largest survey done so far in Delhi. It shows that the government and PSUs are still not inclusive as far as minorities are concerned, says the report.

The report mentions two fact-finding reports, one related to Delhi riots and another related to status of religious palaces. These reports were commissioned by DMC the last one year. The riots related fact-finding report found that the anti-Muslim violence was pre-planned and targeted against the minority community.

Regarding the scholarship given to students, the annual report said “Department of Welfare of SC/ST/OBC/Minorities informed DMC that a total of 7, 262 applications were received from minorities in the three state-funded schemes for SC/ST/OBC/Minorities, which is a sharp decline compared to the last year’s figures which were meagre compared to the numbers of minority students in the NCT of Delhi”.

Apart from talking about its works, the commission also informed about the hurdles which it faced in fulfilling its duties. It complained about the bureaucratic delays in taking up files, fund crunch and the salary issues for the staff members.

With the release of these four reports, Delhi Minorities Commission “is not leaving behind any unfinished task although its work was hampered too much during its last year due to the Delhi Elections for which some of its staff were requisitioned for election duty and its work was affected by the model code of conduct during the election campaign period. Later, the Covid19 lockdown paralysed DMC for nearly three months but the Commission’s Chairman and Members continued their work from home until the lockdown was slightly eased later in June,” said a press note issued at the press conference.

Report on Muslim women in North-East district

This study has been prepared for DMC by Development Oriented Operations Research Surveys (DOORS). The field work for this study was completed before the riots in the area last February. This report is available online here: https://archive.org/details/dmc-northeast-delhi-women-status-2020

Report on Survivors of anti-Sikh riots

This study is about the socio-economic and educational conditions of the survivors of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. It has been prepared for DMC by Human Development Society. This report is available online here: https://archive.org/details/DMC-sikh-status-report-1984-riot . This study, as well as the study on Muslim women, has been presented to Delhi Government with the hope that their recommendations will be adopted to uplift the two most deserving segments of our society.

Report of the Fact-Finding committee in North-East Delhi riots

 The is the report of the Fact-Finding Committee, which the Delhi Minorities Commission had appointed on 9 March 2020 to probe the riots of the North-East Delhi late last February. This 130-page report is an exhaustive account of the origins and causes of the violence, damage to properties including religious places. This report is available online here: https://archive.org/details/DMC-delhi-riots-fact-finding-2020