SC/ST Act: Curfew in parts of MP after Bharat Bandh turns violent; 1 killed
Patna: Dalit organisations across the country have called a 'Bharat bandh' on Monday to protest a recent Supreme Court ruling "diluting" the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The Modi government on Monday filed a review petition on the Supreme Court judgment on the SC/ST Act. The protests left one dead in Madhya Pradesh's Morena, where a curfew was later imposed along with parts of Gwalior. Protests turned violent in Rajasthan's Barmer, with cars and property being damaged. Similar reports emerged from Meerut, where cars were reported to have been damaged.
The Bharat bandh has already brought Punjab to a standstill, as CBSE has postponed the board exams scheduled for April 2, and transport services have been suspended. According to an Indian Express report, several army units have been kept on a standby, should the situation take an ugly turn. Internet services in the state were suspended on Sunday and will remain so through Monday.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, will later in the day hear a review petition filed on the matter by the government. The Centre is likely to tell the apex court that dilution of the Act will render it ineffective and prevent the dispensing of justice to the marginalised Dalit and tribal communities.
On March 20, the apex court had introduced the provision of anticipatory bail in the Act while directing that there would be no automatic arrest on any complaint filed under the law.
The Supreme Court said that the change was brought to protect honest public servants discharging duties from being blackmailed with false cases under the Act. The apex court said government servants should not be arrested without prior sanction and private citizens, too, should be arrested only after an inquiry under the law.
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Around 70 people killed in attack on hospital in Sudan's Darfur region: WHO chief
El Fasher (AP): Some 70 people were killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the chief of the World Health Organisation said on Sunday, part of a series of attacks coming as the African nation's civil war escalated in recent days.
The attack on the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital, which local officials blamed on the rebel Rapid Support Forces, came as the group has seen apparent battlefield losses to the Sudanese military and allied forces under the command of army chief Gen Abdel-Fattah Burhan. That includes Burhan appearing near a burning oil refinery north of Khartoum on Saturday that his forces said they seized from the RSF.
International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a US assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide and sanctions targeting Burhan, have not halted the fighting.
In the Saudi hospital attack in El Fasher, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus offered the death toll in a post on the social platform X.
Officials and others in the capital of North Darfur province had cited a similar figure Saturday, but Ghebreyesus is the first international source to provide a casualty number. Reporting on Sudan is incredibly difficult given communication challenges and exaggerations by both the RSF and the Sudanese military.
“The appalling attack on Saudi Hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, led to 19 injuries and 70 deaths among patients and companions,” Ghebreyesus wrote. “At the time of the attack, the hospital was packed with patients receiving care.”
Another health facility in Al Malha also was attacked Saturday, he added.
“We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan, and to allow full access for the swift restoration of the facilities that have been damaged,” he wrote. “Above all, Sudan's people need peace. The best medicine is peace.”
Ghebreyesus did not identify who launched the attack, though local officials had blamed the RSF for the assault.
The RSF and Sudan's military began fighting each other in April 2023. Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.
Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll in the civil war.
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