A mammoth rally and demonstration was held today by the workers of Lok Janshakti Party, Dalit Sena and Dalit Dasta Virodhi Andolan at Jantar Mantar, to protest against the rising cases of atrocities on dalits in the country. 
The workers were up in arms against   recent attacks on dalits in Mirchpur district of Haryana, Banthal Village in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and  Punjab. The party  workers and activists, led by Lok Janshakti Party President, Ram Vilas Paswan, numbering  over fifty thousand from all over the country belonging to  different social, political and frontal organisations courted arrest. The prominent leaders, in addition to Shri Paswan, who courted arrest, include, Ramchander Paswan, Ramdas Athawale, Abdul Khaliq, Shoib Iqbal, Sardar Harmit Singh, Vinod Nagar, Suresh Sen, Gurucharan Singh, Harminder Singh Kuku, Sukhvinder Singh Ballu, Engineer Devraj, Jagsir Singh Mansa, Guruprit Singh, Parvin Sabarwal, Sanjay Saraf, Dilip Balimiki and Jai Singh Flor, Gurnam Singh Abida, Akida Kiranjit Singh, of Dalit Dasta Virodhi Andolan.
Addressing the Rally Lok Janshakti Party President Shri Ram Vilas Paswan said that the policy of discrimination and disregard, adopted by the various State governments, leads to such attacks on dalits in the country. It is high time that Center must intervene and come forward to protect the rights of dalits, he added. Expressing grave concern, he demanded that to deal with such cases a special court and a committee must be set up to look into the matter and immediately ample security must be provided to dalits. He also said that affected dalits should be rehabilitated far away from the place of occurrence. Shri Paswan also demanded that the Khap Panchayat in Harayana must be banned immediately. In this regard a memorandum was also sent to Prime Minister,  copy of which is enclosed herewith.

(Abdul Khaliq)