RAIPUR: The approach by the two autonomous statutory bodies — National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and Chhattisgarh state human rights commission (SHRC), were “markedly different”, when it comes to attending the grievances on “gross human rights violations” of tribal women in strife-torn districts of Bijapur and Sukma in Bastar zone, the activists cited.
While NHRC took suo-motu cognizance based on the media report, the rights activists expressed their disappointment over the SHRC not having genuinely pursued the issues of rights abuse despite the complaint about the alleged rape and physical assaults of tribal women lodged with it.
The country's top human rights body prima-facie found at least 16 women were victims of rape, sexual violence and physical assault perpetrated by security forces, ironically the SHRC “couldn’t do” a good deal in the given case and closed it barely few months after the complaint was lodged with it in October 2015, the human rights defenders stated.
“The human rights of the victims have been grossly violated by the security personnel of the state”, the NHRC stated in a press release on January 7 after probing the Bastar incidents and issued a notice to the state government asking why it should not recommend an interim monetary relief of Rs 37 lakh for the 16 victims, even as it will further examine the statements of 20 more alleged victims of similar sexual violence.
Activists cited that the watchdog like SHRC “didn’t live up to the expectations” to promote and protect human rights or deter the rights violators.
“It’s strange, when the NHRC can initiate proceedings on its own following a media report, why then the SHRC didn’t deliver its role as human rights protector in Bastar despite registering the complaints and there were media coverage too. With no prompt action initiated, the justice is delayed”, said Mamta Sharma, the state coordinator, Forum for Fast Justice, an NGO working for faster delivery of justice and transparency in judiciary.
The complainant Prakash Thakur was surprised to learn that he was not conveyed anything by SHRC about the closure of his complaint.
“Neither the SHRC informed us about the closing of our complaints on poor tribal women sexually assaulted by security personnel nor it met the women victims or recorded their statements. We are shocked. Irony of the situation is the NHRC takes suo-motu cognisance of a media report on the same issue”, Prakash Thakur, the complainant and president of a tribal body ‘Sarva Adivasi Samaj’ told Express.
The SHRC however denied of any delay on their part to address the human rights issues. “For any given issue or a complaint either the NHRC or the SHRC can take cognizance and simultaneously don’t engage inquiring the same case. We always act on the complaints received. And cases (complaints) are closed only after the actions have been taken on it. The concerned complainants are informed about the status of their case”, Dilip Bhatt, joint secretary, SHRC told Express.