Chennai: Around 445 villages across Tamil Nadu still practice untouchability, a form of suppression against people belonging to Dalit and Tribal communities, revealed a response under Right To Information (RTI) Act. The RTI query also revealed that while 445 villages are atrocity prone another 341 villages are prone to dormant atrocity in the state. The dormant atrocity prone areas are places where untouchability was reported sometime back but not in recent times.
Overall Tamil Nadu has a total of 15,979 villages, as per the 2011 census report.
According to a report on The News Minute, Madurai tops the list with 43 villages still following untouchability practices followed by Villupuram with 25 villages, Tirunelveli with 24 villages and Vellore with 19 villages, as per the report by Home Department.
In Madurai, 61 places have been identified as dormant atrocity prone villages while Chennai has one place marked as atrocity prone area and three places as dormant atrocity prone areas.
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In Kongu belt or the western region of the state, eight districts have been found to practice untouchability.
Among the districts, overall 84 villages have been found to practice untouchability. In the 84 districts, Salem topped the belt with 16 villages while Namakkal has four villages which are found to be lesser atrocity prone villages.
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However, activists opined that the number revealed by the state government are less than the orignal numbers on the ground. The General Secretary of Tamil Nadu Discrimination Eradication Front K Samuel talking to Federal said, the villages identified by the department for practising untouchability are less than the numbers of villages following casteist practises on the ground.