Asian Centre for Human Rights

Asian Centre for Human Rights is dedicated to promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the Asian region by: n providing accurate and timely information and complaints to the National Human Rights Institutions, the United Nations bodies and mechanisms as appropriate; n conducting investigation, research, campaigning and lobbying on country situations or individual cases; n increasing the capacity of human rights defenders and civil society groups through relevant trainings on the use of national and international human rights procedures; n providing input into international standard setting processes on human rights; n providing legal, political and practical advice according to the needs of human rights defenders and civil society groups; and n by securing the economic, social and cultural rights through rights-based approaches to development. ASIAN CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS C-3/441-C, Janakpuri, New Delhi 110058 INDIA Phone/Fax: +91 11 25620583, 25503624 Website: www.achrweb.org Email: [email protected] ASIAN CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ASIAN CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS India Human Rights Report 2008 Edited by: Suhas Chakma, Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights Published by: Asian Centre for Human Rights C-3/441-C, Janakpuri, New Delhi 110058 INDIA Tel/Fax: +91 11 25620583, 25503624 Website: www.achrweb.org Email: [email protected] First published December 2008 © Asian Centre for Human Rights, 2008 No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher. Cover photo: A Bihari migrant labourer fleeing from Assam following attacks by armed opposition groups. ISBN : 978-81-88987-18-4 Price Rs.: 795/- Preface .............................................................v Andhra Pradesh ........................................ 1 ARUnachaL Pradesh ............................... 13 C ASOM................................................................ 16 BIHAR .............................................................. 31 ChhattisGARH............................................ 38 DELHI .............................................................. 45 O GUjarat ......................................................... 52 HARYANA ........................................................ 59 HIMachaL Pradesh .................................. 63 N JAMMU AND KASHMIR ................................ 65 JHARKHAND .................................................. 75 Karnataka ................................................... 81 T KeraLA ........................................................... 87 MADHYA Pradesh ....................................... 91 Maharashtra ............................................. 96 MANIPUR ...................................................... 106 E MEGHALAYA ................................................. 115 MIZoraM ..................................................... 118 NAGALAND ................................................... 122 N Orissa ........................................................... 123 PUnjab .......................................................... 130 Rajasthan .................................................. 135 T TAMIL NADU ................................................ 139 TRIPUra ........................................................ 144 Uttarakhand ........................................... 148 Uttar Pradesh ......................................... 150 S WEST BENGAL.............................................. 157 Preface s this report goes for print, serious individual cases. It strongly suggests that intelligence failures to prevent or act human rights violations are getting worse. Aagainst the appalling Mumbai attacks The report clearly demonstrates that the are emerging. But in addition to external widespread use of human rights violations terror groups, India faces an extraordinary and by the State are feeding internal conflicts and deepening security threat from internal conflict. playing into the hands of those that seek to undermine the State through terror. The findings of the ACHR’s India Human Rights Report 2008 serve as a warning of The report documents widespread acts of deepening internal conflict. The report violence and terror by armed opposition underlines that human rights violations by groups. It also documents the widespread use the State, combined with the failure of State of human rights violations by Indian security institutions to address these violations, are forces to counter insurgency; the actions of fuelling internal conflict. the State involve high levels of human rights violations against the civilian population. If this was not bad enough the report exposes the extraordinary low level of State and non The report reveals that vulnerable groups state monitoring of human rights violations are suffering disproportionately: minorities, in India. Both failures can be attributed to a indigenous peoples, tribal groups, Dalits, mixture of State inaction and in some cases a women and children are most likely to suffer deliberate policy. at the hands of the State. The State not only violates the rights of these groups but Similar mistakes that led to the external terror is complicit in crimes committed by upper attacks on Mumbai can be seen in India’s caste groups and the powerful against these approach to internal conflict. Policy makers vulnerable groups. are not getting the human rights information they need to make informed decisions. And Fuelling Conflict again like Mumbai, what is more worrying The close relationship between human rights is that decision makers are failing to act even violations by the State and growing conflict when the information is provided. is not difficult to identify. In 2007, 29,596 cases on alienation and restoration of tribal ACHR’s Annual India Human lands were heard by the courts in Madhya Rights Report Pradesh. Not a single case was ruled in favour 1 Monitoring human rights in India is an of the tribal groups. This in part explains why enormously difficult task. India has over a Maoists from Chhattisgarh are winning ever billion people and conflict in many States. greater support in the tribal belt of Madhya Given the scale of the task, this report is Pradesh. not exhaustive. It aims to chronicle patterns Another example is the inaction of the Orissa and examine the implications. But as the State authorities to compensate people only report to examine the problem on a for repeated ‘land grabs’ by commercial nationwide scale, it gives a unique overview companies. This failure to provide a legal of the human rights challenges in India. Its means to realize justice led to violent protest conclusions are worrying. in 2007. The State responded with excessive force leading to the death of many protestors Human Rights and Insurgency including the massacre of 14 tribal people in The report reveals that India has serious Kalingangar on January 2, 2006. The State human rights problems that go far beyond failed to prosecute any of those guilty. ACHR v India Human Rights Report 2008 Gross Under-reporting natural causes.2 Effectively this is an official denial of any death resulting from human The report reveals that India’s human rights violations. rights problems are grossly under-reported. In addition, the methods of information If these statistics are used to examine the need collection are also denying decision makers for reform then there is clearly no need for the right information to intervene. reform. But these statistics sit uneasily with the findings of the Supreme Court of India No statistics on human rights that has pointed out that the police ‘more violations by the Army often than not seek to pervert the truth’.3. These figures also sit uneasily with the direction of Even the most hawkish observers of the Army’s the National Human Rights Commission counter insurgency strategy would concede on custodial death which expressed concern that ‘mistakes’ happen. Yet, stunningly, over: 4 the ACHR report reveals that there are no official crime statistics involving the Army “(…) reported attempts to suppress or present a in tackling insurgency. The National Crime different picture of these incidents”. Records Bureau (NCRB) of the Ministry of Again in 2005, in a directive issued to State Home Affairs is responsible for collecting Chief Ministers on post-mortem examination crime statistics. Yet, it has no mandate to of custodial deaths the NHRC stated that collate Army related crimes. The same is true there was: with regard to the National Human Rights Commission. “a systematic attempt is being made to suppress the truth and the [post mortem] report is merely The Army is not a self interested institution the police version of the incident”. as in many neighbouring countries. It is deployed for and on behalf of the people. Flawed NHRC figures It belongs to the people. And it should be accountable to the people. The India Human Rights Report 2008 of ACHR reveals the widespread use of torture in Flawed NCRB figures custody; torture that unsurprisingly regularly leads to deaths in custody. Yet torture does The figures currently collected by the NCRB not even exist as a statistical term. Shockingly, are flawed and outdated. For example, even the NHRC uses the term ‘other police ‘custodial death’ is the term applied to excess’ to describe and effectively devalue anyone who has died in custody. It is a term what is a very serious crime. to effectively describe someone who may have died of natural causes

Load more