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A ‘virtual’ solution is on offer to track atrocities and crimes against the most vulnerable sections of our society — the dalits and adivasis, who together form 25 per cent of India’s population.
To ensure registration of cases for speedy justice, the National Dalit Movement for Justice (NDMJ) has launched a Web-based tool — Atrocity Tracking and Monitoring (ATM) system — under the aegis of the National Coalition for strengthening SC&ST PoA Act (NCSPOA).
“The ATM system has been built with the objective of providing a tool in the hands of the dalits and adivasi to report atrocities and avail of timely justice. ATM is also useful for dalit human rights activists and organisations to create and maintain a repository of cases, track records, and facilitate information exchange for timely action,” said V.A. Ramesh Nathan, General Secretary, NDMJ, a movement of dalit survivors, defenders, academics, and about 500 organisations.
Under the ATM system, triggers and alerts are created through e-mails and the short messaging system (SMS) as soon as anybody with access to the Internet goes to the Website and uses the helpline number -9898915455.
As soon as a person sends a message on this number, the Website automatically identifies its circle and sends a message on the mobile number of the concerned person in that circle, who checks the validity of a case. Once the validation is done, the person goes to the authority concerned to facilitate necessary action. Simultaneously, the case is uploaded on the ATM website from where the progress on it can be tracked, NDMJ said.
Nathan said over 100 atrocity cases have already been reported from different parts of the country and e-mails and SMS notifications have been sent to the officials concerned.
To enable those among these vulnerable sections to use the ATM system, NDMJ is now holding a two-day training workshop for Northern and Southern States in March in New Delhi.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, nearly 3,70,234 crimes have been committed against SCs/STs between 2001-12, with 15,917 women reporting rape, 7,900 murder cases, and 49,514 cases of brutal attacks, among others.
“Only 32 per cent of the crimes have been registered under the Act, and the conviction rate is a meagre 24.8 per cent,” said NDMJ.
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