By Azera Rahman, IANS,
New Delhi : Of the 18,000 human rights violations recorded in India in the first three months of this year, a staggering 65.57 percent, or roughly two-thirds, were reported in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, shows data from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
According to official documents, from Jan 1 to March 31, a total of 18,772 cases of violations were registered with the commission. Of these, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi – in that order – accounted for 12,310 cases.
Sikkim has the enviable record of zero cases followed by Daman and Diu with two, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Nagaland with four cases each.
“While the highest number of violations (11,091) were registered in Uttar Pradesh, its size is also a factor that should be taken into account. Delhi, which is the capital of the country, registered 1,219 violations – the second highest in the country – in three months,” an official of NHRC told IANS.
The other three ‘bad performers’ were Haryana, which registered 719 violations, Orissa 632 and Bihar 615.
The violations are segregated into 17 categories – those related to children, health, jail, judiciary, the mafia, labour, minorities and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, police, pollution and environment, refugees, service matters, women, paramilitary, defence forces, foreigners and miscellaneous.
In Uttar Pradesh, the highest number of violations were those by the police – a whopping 4,242.
The men in khaki topped the charts in the country too, with 6,426 violations registered against police in entire India.
According to the official, the nature of complaints against police include arbitrary use of power, abduction, rape, custodial violence and death, fake gun battles and unlawful detention.
The second highest number of violations in the country have been clubbed under miscellaneous and numbers 5,534.
“Under miscellaneous, there are cases like the disappearance of a person, land dispute, hunger strike, family dispute, inaction by the state government or the central government, matrimonial disputes, labour disputes and atrocities by the customs department and others,” the official said.
In fact, in Delhi the highest number of violations are miscellaneous at 415.
Across the country, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of such cases registered – 2,915.
Human rights abuse against women also make for a large number of complaints.
According to the official figures, a total of 1,403 complaints were for abuse of women.
A huge chunk of these cases were in Uttar Pradesh, 957. Delhi recorded 92 cases of this nature, making it the second highest among all states.
The NHRC is a recommendatory body set up in 1993.
(Azera Rahman can be contacted at [email protected])