The Hindu : State urged to set up human rights panel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 10, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

State urged to set up human rights panel

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE Dec. 9. The South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM) has demanded the setting up of a State Human Rights Commission in Karnataka.

SICHREM will also organise a public hearing on atrocities committed by police, including cases of custodial deaths and of refusing to register an FIR, on Tuesday at the SCM House, Mission Road at 10 a.m., to observe the Human Rights Day. Some 20 victims will narrate the atrocities committed on them, and Justice H.G. Balakrishna, former judge of Karnataka High Court, will chair the session.

Speaking to presspersons here on Monday, Hasan Mansoor of SICHREM, said the State Government had not yet set up an SHRC even though it was a statutory obligation as per the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993. The organisation also demanded that human rights courts be set up in every district in the State, he said.

Most of the human rights violations were committed by the police. Cases of torture by police and custodial deaths were on the rise every year. Between 1999 and 2000, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) recorded 1,143 deaths in police and judicial custody, he alleged. In 2000-2001, this figure had gone up by 38, while deaths in judicial custody increased by 230 in 2001-2002, Prof. Mansur added. Members of SICHREM demanded that effective independent monitoring safeguards and guidelines for those in custody be provided.

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