Woman accuses lawyer neighbour of caste slur, approaches OHRC

Bhubaneswar: A day after the shocking incident of a minor Dalit girl being brutally thrashed by the relatives of a muscleman as her shadow fell on the upper caste man occurred in a Madhya Pradesh village, a woman here has lodged a complaint with Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) accusing a lawyer of hurling caste remarks at her.
Sarojini Sethi, 41, today met the officials of the rights panel and alleged that she has been verbally abused by her neighbour when she protested encroachment by the latter near her house. A resident of Mahabir Nagar in Talabania area of the city, Sethi said, “Our neighbor Ram Chandra Roy is building a structure encroaching upon a common area. When I protested, he shouted at me saying I am an ‘untouchable’ as I belong to lower caste.”
In a written complaint to the commission, Sethi also alleged that her neighbour tried to malign her character and threatened her with dire consequences. She said, “He also tried to physically assault me. I lodged a complaint in Lingaraj police station on the very day of the incident, but no steps have been taken so far. I am scared and apprehensive about my safety.”
Explaining her agony, Sethi wondered, “The person abused me on the basis of caste is a lawyer by profession. I am astonished as to how such an educated person can use such insensitive language against a woman.”

Notably, Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, strongly disapproves social inequalities and suggests strict punishments to perpetrators in case of humiliation of a person on the basis of his or her caste.