CHANDIGARH: India’s national human rights commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranganath Mishra visited Punjab last Week without inviting either the affected persons through a public announcement or any human rights groups to appear before it. Instead, the commission left the invitation business to the Punjab government to take care Of. The result was that the police did not allow even those affected persons to appear before the commission who somehow got wind of the commission’s sitting in Chandigarh through local news. A paper, in at least one case, a woman from Patiala who was on her Way to Chandigarh was kidnapped by the police. She was released only after someone Known to her complained to the commission chairman, The woman wanted to tell the commission that seven members of her family, including a two-year-old child, had been kidnapped by the police and they had been untraceable.

Meanwhile, human rights groups reluctantly met the commission to appraise it of a series of violations by the Indian forces in Punjab. Justice Ajit Singh Bains, who heads a group, lamented that the commission had no power to proceed against the guilty. Inderjit Singh Jai jee who heads another group Said that the purpose of the Indian government in sending the commission to Punjab is not to give relief to the victims or to stop the atrocities but to are the atrocities but to parade the existence of the commission before the world. Another activist Said that the Indian aim is to mollify the US, public opinion on the eve of the Indian prime minister’s visit.

 About 22 delegations representing more than 1000 persons met the commission at Chandigarh. They included four women whose foreheads had been tattooed by the police with the words “pick pockets.” The Punjab high court failed to get any justice to them. The tattoo marks were ordered to be removed by an operation but it made the marks even uglier. In his meeting with the commission, the Punjab chief minister promised to set up a human rights commission at the state level. A human rights court to be headed by a district judge would also be set up, he said. The commission chairman criticized the Punjab chief secretary Ajit Singh Chatha for his failure to respond to numerous queries sent by the commission in connection with the ‘violation human rights in Punjab.

Article extracted from this publication >> April 22, 1994