NEW DELHI: There have been 67 deaths in police custody in the Capital in the last 12 years, according to the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR).

This was stated in a report read out at a recent day-long workshop on human rights organized by the People’s Rights Organization (PRO) in the Capital.

PUDR claimed that most of these “victims” came from the weakest sections of society and their family members have been denied justice by the courts inspite of repeated efforts to raise the issue. The PUDR report also scoffed at the reasons given by the police to explain such deaths,

A member of other speakers expressed alarm at the “deteriorating human rights situation” in the country; K.G. Kannahiran pointed out a “growing tendency to single out human right activists for persecution.” He said that in the past tribals and the backward sections of society had been the victims of police brutality and killings, But recently, there have been attacks even fatal ones on human right activists.

V.M. Tarkunde, former justice, stressed the problem of bonded labor and the need for effective Jaws to regulate minimum wages and land reform, He said that the question of economic rights was related to that of human rights. He also drew the gathering’s attention to “police excesses” in Kashmir.

Latika Lahiri, president PRO, expressed her organization’s Opposition to the “extra-constitutional legal edifice which the Indian state has erected with such Acts, as ESMA, NSA and TADA.” She added, “at present at least 20,000 people in different slates are behind the bars under TADA without any recourse to legal provisions enshrined in the Indian Constitution.” Lahiri condemned both state terrorism and individual (anti-state) terrorism. But she noted that state terrorism was “more dangerous” as “it snatches all the constitutional and legal rights of the individual and creates a reign of terror under the pretext of establishing the rule of law.”

In his paper on human rights violation in Tamil Nadu, P.V. Bakthavatchalam accused the state chief minister of perpetuating and condoning the suppressing of human rights in the state. He said that the state government has put restrictions on public meetings and press conferences and police brutality has been on the increase.

Bhagya Chandra Chakma accused the Arunachal Pradesh government of persecuting and discriminating against the Chakmas and the Hajongs refugees who have not been conferred the Indian citizenship inspite of two decades of residence in the country. A number of other human rights activist’s submitted reports on the human rights situation in other parts of the country, A slide show on the pollution of the Delhi-stretch of the Yamuna was also shown.

According to the speakers at the workshop, “the denial of, human rights results in the propagation of all sorts of vested interests and the conscious evasion of the burning issues relating to women, children, working people, minorities and Dalits.” They emphasized that “no society can achieve real progress if sections of its members are denied basic social economical and political rights.

Article extracted from this publication >> October 16, 1992