NHRC receives over 40 police shootout cases from Assam in 5 years

Guwahati, Nov 17 (PTI) The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has received over 40 cases of police shootouts of accused persons in custody in Assam over the last five years, its chairperson Justice Arun Kumar Mishra said here on Friday.

Addressing a press conference after concluding a two-day camp here to hear cases from the northeastern region, Justice Mishra said a total of 56 cases were heard from the eight states.

'We have received more than 40 cases in the last five years,' he said when asked about the large number of police shootouts of accused persons in custody in Assam during the last two-and-a-half years.

According to the law, every such incident has to be reported to the NHRC, Justice Mishra said.

'We are examining each and every case. Wherever we find violation of guidelines, we order compensation to victims or the families,' he added.

Justice Mishra, however, did not provide any details on the number of cases that have been disposed of by ordering to pay compensation to the victims.

Along with Justice Mishra, NHRC Members Dr Dnyaneshwar Manohar Mulay and Rajiv Jain, secretary general Bharat Lal, registrar (Law) Surajit Dey and senior officers also attended the camp.

'The commission heard 56 cases in the presence of officers concerned from the northeastern states and the complainants. With the intervention of the commission, a compensation of Rs 3.56 crore has been asked to be paid by the states,' the chairperson said.

Some of the cases include alleged arbitrary and unlawful division or partition of land of the Chakmas in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh and alleged rape of a 16-year-old tribal girl in Kokrajhar of Assam, he added.

'We also took up the case of erosion of two backward tribal Buddhist villages along Burhi Dihing river in Assam's Tinsukia district. We ordered the government to pay compensation and asked them to take steps to prevent erosion in future,' Justice Mishra said.

The commission also held a meeting with the chief secretaries and DGPs of the eight states and asked them to submit action-taken reports on various advisories by the NHRC on issues such as mental health, police encounters, bonded labour, right to food and safety, truck drivers, prevention of suicide in judicial and police custodies, manual scavenging, transgender and child sexual abuse materials on internet.

'We have issued 13 advisories and asked the states to submit a report to us within four weeks on what they are doing to implement these guidelines,' Justice Mishra said.

The commission also stressed upon the state governments to provide infrastructure to the State Human Rights Commissions and fill up the vacant posts on priority, he added.

After hearing the cases, the commission interacted with different NGOs. They raised a gamut of issues related to rights violations, Justice Mishra told reporters.

'Our objective was to restore confidence in the machinery. We believe that the commission should come to the people, not that people should come to us,' he added.

Talking about the first day's programme, Justice Mishra said the NHRC held a national conference on 'Advancing Human Rights through local-self governments' to sensitise local-self governments on various aspects of human rights.

'The main objective of the conference was to create awareness on the role of local-self governments like panchayati raj in advancing human rights and related facets of it,' he added. PTI TR TR MNB