Columnist sentenced for casteist comments

The special Prevention of Atrocities Act court on Thursday convicted a Mumbai-based columnist for making casteist comments in an editorial article written for a Mumbai tabloid in 2006. Anish Trivedi,a columnist for Mid-Day,was sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined Rs 25,000.

The case pertains to an April 30,2006 article he penned in the tabloid,in which he wrote about the bad condition of government offices and attributed this to the policy of reservation. Trivedis column,titled Children of a Lesser God,blamed caste-based reservations as a primary reason for the bad condition of government offices. While a case was registered with the Bhoiwada police station,the police included the editors of the publication as accused in the case. However,Judge C K Bedi acquitted the editors.