NHRC team expected at Dantewada soon......

Posted by: "Pravin Patel" reachppatel@yahoo.com


During the visit of the team of National Human Rights Commission at Chhattishgarh, I was granted an appointment with the Hon'ble Chairperson, Justice Shri Rajendrababu. The meeting which was held at Raj Bhawan premises, lasted for half an hour where the matter of Human Rights Violations at Chhattisgarh were discussed.





It was apprised that when 14 out of 18 districts of Chhattisgrarh are in the grip of Naxalites related problems, why Salwa Judum is pursued, despite causing lots of hardships to the tribals by pushing them in undeclared civil war situation.




It was also apprised that two major things happening simultaneously can not be mere coincidence. TATA STEEL has executed MOU on 4th June, 2005 and on the same day, at Dantewad, Salwa Judum starts which has a blanket state support and in fact it is not a secret that Salwa Judum is a state sponsored counter terrorism enterprise.




The other issues that were raised during the meeting are as below:



DANTEWADA : i ) Almost 700 Villages have been destructed.


ii) Panchayati Raj system of governance has collapsed in those villages.



iii) Fake encounters and near civil war situationiv



) Harrsahment of Media and Human Rights Activits.



v) Almost 1.5 lakh tribals are forced to live as refugees.




vi) 30,000 tribals have fled to the border areas of Andhra Pradesh out of fear of Salwa Judumvii



) Many tribals are in the camps with deplorable living conditions.



RAIGARH :At Natwarpur, one Jaipur company, by committing fraud has grabed about 250 Acres of land of tribals by cheating and misrepresentation by showing them as Non tribals.




STATE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION:It was also brought to the notice of the Hon'ble Chairperson that the State Human Rights Commission, which is mandatory to be headed by a retired Justice of the High Court. The commission needs to be reconstituted to make it effective.




It was also brought to the notice of the Hon'ble Chairperson that there are nearly six thousand cases of HR Violations that are pending before the commission. Petitions filed by me before the Commission in the matter of fake encounter of Ponjer- Santoshpur and also of Nayapara, Bijapur were also discussed.





A request was also made to the Hon'ble Chairperson to please interact directly with the tribals at the camps and send an independent investigation team of NHRC, he has assured to do the needful at the earliest. Hon'ble Chairperson, NHRC, An assurance has been given by him that he will arrange to send the high power investigation team within 15-20 days.



Pravin Patel