Annual Report 1999-2000 □ To organize loan facilities for the youth for self-employment schemes or small-scale industries. □ To evolve any other suitable scheme for economic empowerment, keeping in mind the availability oflocal raw materials. □ The State Government and the District Administration to pay ex-gratia compensation at rates varying between Rs. 30,000/- to Rs. 50,000/- per family, depending on the magnitude of suffering undergone by the family. The sum already paid to four Dalits may be deducted from the total payment. □ To ensure supply of drinking water and other essential commodities at controlled prices through fair price shops. □ To continue police protection till the law and order situation becomes normal. COMMENT Article 15 of the Constitution of India expressly prohibits discrimination on the grounds ofreligion, race, caste, sex or place ofbirth. Article 15(2) further stipulates that no citizen shall, on grounds only ofreligion, race, caste, sex, place ofbirth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to: □ access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment; or □ the use ofwells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public. Article 46 of the Constitution, under the Direcdve Principles of State Policy, stipulates that the State shall promote with special care, the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation. Under Article 17 of the Indian Constitution, untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out ofuntouchability is an offence punishable in accordance with law. Violation of human rights of members of the Reang community of Mizoram (Case No. 40/16/97-98) The President, Akhil Bharativa Vanwasi Kalyan Samiti, and seven other such like-minded persons submitted petitions to the Commission, wherein they alleged that since September/ Oacber 1997, the Reang community members had been living in an atmosphere of terror created by the Mizos, with the tacit support of the local administration and the police. As a result of this, over 30,000 Reangs had left Mizoram for Tripura. There were apparently several incidents of killing, rape, abduction and burning of houses by the Mizos. The condidon in the refugee camps established by the Government of Tripura was also not sadsfactory. The peddoners requested intervention by the Commission. The Commission called for reports from the Governments of Mizoram, Tripura and Assam. The Government of Tripura, in its report, stated that although the influx of 144