When it comes to flouting Human Rights in the State, police remains the major violator. The number of complaints received by the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) alone put things in perspective.
The Commission received as many as 3,014 cases in 2011-12 and of them 1,173 alone were against the police and paramilitary forces. In the next year, the figure jumped to 3,873 and again, the majority - 1,356 - were against the police force, the annual reports of the rights panel say.
During 2011-12, the commission awarded compensation in 24 cases after conducting detailed inquiry. Of them, 20 cases were because of police highhandedness. Similarly, during 2012-13, the Commission found as many as 43 complaints to be true and asked the administration to award compensation to the victims and complainants. Thirty-five of those cases were about police atrocities.
Going by the numbers, the men in Khaki account for three-fourth of the violations in last two years.
Human rights activists say that the trend suggests that the bid to give police a humane face has not really worked, or police is just too thick-skinned to change its mindset.
“There have been several instances where cases of atrocity and high-handedness against police have been proved by the Commission’s investigation and compensation has been awarded. So why can not the Government take stringent measures against the violating officials to send a message instead of just sitting happy with monetary compensation,” the activist pointed out.
The annual reports also show that the Commission, without much manpower at its disposal, is struggling to clear the piling up cases. By beginning of 2011-12, pendency of cases stood at 5,264 and by the end of the year, it had risen to 6403 with about 1,148 cases disposed. In the 2012-13, as many as 1,227 cases were disposed by the Commission.