The irony of human rights crisis
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: October 26, 2013 -
An 18-member official team of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) led by its Chairperson Justice KG Balakrishnan is currently at Imphal on a three-day visit to assess the scenario of human rights violations in this insurgency-ravaged State.
The latest visit of the NHRC team for conducting its Camp sitting at Imphal to hear complaints about human rights violations followed a series of petitions lodged by various human rights groups, more particularly, Human Rights Alert (HRA) and Extrajudicial Execution Victim Families Association (EEVFAM), which have been demanded setting up of a special Investigation team to probe into more than 1,500 cases of staged killings pending in the Supreme Court.
Of course, this is not the first time that a team or officials from NHRC have come to visit Manipur on some important assignments.
But there is something very interesting in the visit of NHRC officials this time.
This time, wherever they go, whether to meet Irom Chanu Sharmila at the Security ward of JNIMS, where she had been kept confined for refusal to end her fast-unto-death stir demanding repeal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, or the visit to Churachandpur District Hospital, Loktak place, or the Camp sitting, the NHRC officials left the State Government and its normally haughty officials red-faced and speechless.
By the end of their three-day-long visit to the State and the Camp sitting held at Imphal to hear complaints and cases of human rights violation, the NHRC team revealed more chinks than what the State Police Department could think of concealing on its armour.
Taking the State administration to task, the NHRC team has also recommended payment of monetary relief to the tune of Rs 32 lakhs for violation of human rights in six cases of deaths in police action and also issued notices under Section 18 of the Protection of Human Rights Act in nine such cases.
All these are fine and okay.
But the million dollar question here is how such frequent visits of NHRC officials and the recommendations made to the State administration at the end of their every visit are actually going to help in resolving the crisis of human rights violations in Manipur.
The root cause of the problem of human rights violations in Manipur is closely related to the prolonged imposition of the draconian and black law known under the name of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives sweeping power to the security personnel.
But NHRC can have no say on the conduct of the armed forces and other paramilitary personnel as Section 19 of the Protection of Human Rights Act on whose foundation NHRC stands, restricts its power even to initiate investigation on its own in case of violation of human rights by personnel of armed forces.
This is what we would like to call a classic case of left hand taking away whatever that were given by the right hand.
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