‘We are one country’, says SC; expresses concern over ‘assault’ on Kerala students

“We are one country”, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday as it expressed concern over a recent incident where two students from Kerala were allegedly assaulted by the police and locals near the Red Fort, “coerced” to speak Hindi and ridiculed for wearing a traditional attire of the state.

A Bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Alok Aradhe said it pained to know that people in this country were targeted because of cultural and racial differences.

Two first-year students of Delhi University’s Zakir Husain College were allegedly assaulted, “coerced” to speak Hindi and ridiculed for wearing “lungi”.

While hearing a 2015 petition filed in the wake of a series of attacks on people from the Northeast, including the death of a student from Arunachal Pradesh, Nido Tania, in Delhi, the top court had directed the Centre to form a committee in the matter and had said the panel would be given powers for ensuring strict action in incidents of racial discrimination, racial atrocities and racial violence, and suggested measures to curb such hate and racial crimes.

On Tuesday, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj submitted on behalf of the Centre that a monitoring committee has already been set up and the petition should be disposed of.

The petitioner’s counsel opposed it, saying incidents of racial discrimination and exclusion of Northeast people continued to occur.

“We read in the newspaper recently that a man from Kerala was ridiculed for wearing a lungi in Delhi. This is unacceptable in a country where people live in harmony. You should be more bothered about it. We are one country,” the Bench told the ASG.

The top court asked the petitioner to file a response on the status report filed by the Centre after his counsel pointed out that the monitoring committee, which was expected to meet quarterly, had met only 14 times in the last nine years. (With PTI inputs)