P L Punia, chairman of the national commission for scheduled caste (NCSC) and member of Parliament, has said that the dalits, minorities and backward classes in UP feel threatened and insecure under the Mayawati government's rule.

Lamenting on the situation in the state, he said, in a statement issued on Wednesday, that the police stations, which were meant to protect people had turned into the dens of rape and murder.

Once a confidant of Mayawati, Punia strongly objected to her allegations that the he and his organisation were discriminating in matters relating to the dalits and backward classes. He pointed out that the commission had always worked within the constitutional framework and impartially. No state other than UP had raised questioned its functioning.

His advice to Mayawati was to take care of the dalits, minorities and backward classes of her state rather than politicising and trivialising the issue by pointing at incidents of atrocities elsewhere, like the Mirchpur incident in Haryana.

Punia said the commission did it best to provide relief to the victims of Mirchpur incident, in which an old man and his mentally challenged daughter were burnt alive by the upper casts in December 2010. Not only had he raised the matter in parliament, as chairman of the NCSC, he had sent inquiry teams and provided compensation of Rs 15 lakh to the victims' family.