New Delhi, Oct. 20 -- The Supreme Court has directed that the committee constituted by Centre to monitor complaints of violence and harassment against people from the Northeast region living in other parts of the country to recommend necessary changes in law for their protection by December 18. In an order passed on October 14, the top court further directed the committee to ensure that in future, victims' statements are recorded soon after the incident to avoid delay in tracing them. The order comes close on the heels of the recent killing of a 54-year-old music teacher from Manipur, Vikram Singh Chongtham, in Delhi last month by a group of men after he asked them not to create a commotion outside his house. The bench of justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva said, "The committee shall also address the issue of necessary changes being made in the law to ensure protection and make suitable recommendations to the authorities concerned after due consideration." The order passed in a petition filed by advocate Alana Golmei gives an impetus to the long-standing demand of criminal law reforms to strengthen the institutional mechanism available to tackle incidents of violence against people from northeast living in other parts of the country. In 2014, following the death of Nido Tania, a student from Arunachal Pradesh, in Delhi, the Centre set up a committee headed by former IAS officer MK Bezbaruah, that recommended changes in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) among other set of reforms concerning issues faced by northeastern people. Two specific changes were recommended by the Bezbaruah committee seeking introduction of new provisions section 153C dealing with hate speech and section 505A on provocation of violence on grounds of race, caste, place of birth, residence, etc. In 2017, the Law Commission of India made similar recommendations to the Centre for inserting the two provisions. The Monitoring Committee was constituted by the Centre in 2016 on a PIL proceeding filed by Karma Dorjee. One of the mandates assigned to the committee was to ensure implementation of the Bezbaruah committee recommendations. However, though the issue of law reforms to prevent racial discrimination of Northeast people was discussed, no concrete recommendations have been made by the committee so far. Posting the matter on December 18, the court went through an affidavit filed by the Centre giving details of the proceedings of the Monitoring Committee that met on September 8....