The Asian Centre for
Human Rights has found the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom as
worst violators of international humanitarian laws among the other
armed opposition groups in the country.
Releasing the India Human Rights Report 2008 here on Tuesday, the
director of Asian Centre for Human Rights, Mr Suhas Chakma, told
reporters: "Among the armed groups in the country, the armed groups in
Assam like Ulfa are the worst violators of international humanitarian
laws, including targeted killings of Bihari labourers and political
leaders."
He, however, pointed out: "In mainland India, the Naxalites were
responsible for widespread killings. Political leaders were killed by
the Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and
West Bengal."
He regretted that crimes committed by the armed opposition groups are
international crimes but the government has also failed in establishing
accountability.
The report also underlined that human rights violations by the state,
combined with the failure of state institutions to address these
violations, are fuelling internal conflict. The report exposes the
extraordinary low level of state and non-state monitoring of human
rights violations in India. Both failures can be attributed to a
mixture of state inaction and, in some cases, deliberate policy.
Mr Chakma said: "Similar mistakes that led to the external attack on
Mumbai can be seen in India's approach to internal conflict. Limited
and poor quality human rights information is failing to provide the
right information to decision-makers to prevent further internal
conflict. And again, like Mumbai, what is more worrying is that
decision-makers are failing to act even when the information is
provided." The rights body observed that among the states, Uttar
Pradesh has the worst human rights record with 66 per cent of fake
encounter killings (201 complaints out of the 301 cases), 241 cases of
death in judicial custody and maximum number of custodial rapes.
Referring the problem of the Naxalite, Mr Chakma warned: "In 2007 in
Madhya Pradesh, not a single court ruled in favour of a tribal in the
29,596 cases of alienation and restoration of tribal land. Should we be
surprised that the support base of the Maoists is increasing in the
tribal belt of the state? Unless preventive measures are taken, Madhya
Pradesh will find itself with a Naxalite insurgency similar to West
Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa."
Maharashtra has the worst record of deaths in police custody with
almost two custodial deaths each month, Mr Chakma pointed out, adding:
"Political repression is most serious in West Bengal, Kerala and
Tripura. It is impossible to make a distinction between the party
authorities and state authorities and between law enforcement personnel
and the CPM cadres. The state sponsored violence in Nandigram
exemplifies the problem."
He also accused that the official statistics of human rights violations
are inaccurate. Despite routine extrajudicial executions in encounters,
the National Human Rights Commission recorded only one case of
encounter killing in Jammu and Kashmir during 2006-2007, while none has
been recorded with regard to Manipur and Chhattisgarh, the most
intensive conflict states in India.
Despite the Army and the paramilitary forces being responsible for
gross human rights violations in conflict situations, there is no
official crime statistics involving the Army in tackling insurgency as
the National Crime Records Bureau of the ministry of home affairs does
for the police.
In order to address the current systemic failures the rights groups
will also submit certain recommendations to the home ministry on
Wednesday in New Delhi. Mr Chakma, however, admitted that it is hardly
taken seriously by the authorities.
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