By IANS
New Delhi : Two of India’s largest Communist parties have taken umbrage at statements of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) chairman S. Rajendra Babu, comparing the violence in West Bengal’s Nandigram to the 2001 Godhra carnage in Gujarat. The two communist parties said they expected him to “take a more balanced and impartial view on the matter”.
“We hope that you would kindly reconsider the statements made on Nandigram and take a more balanced and impartial view on the matter,” the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) said in a memorandum to Babu Tuesday.
“In the case of Nandigram, we expect the NHRC to go into the entire series of events, which started from January 2007 and fix responsibility for all instances of human rights violations,” said the memorandum.
“We have great respect for the NHRC, which has played a vital role in our democracy, by impartially inquiring into cases of human rights violations and fixing responsibility for the same,” the memorandum added.
Sitaram Yechury, D. Raja, Basudev Acharya, Gurudas Dasgupta, Brinda Karat and Mohammad Salim, CPI-M and CPI members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha signed the memorandum.
Among Babu’s statements the parties objected to was: “Nandigram and Godhra were severe assaults on the face of democracy. They were the worst scars on the face of the nation. It is shameless to see that human rights were violated in such a way”.
“We would like to register our strong protest against these statements,” the memorandum said.
The statements were made even before speaking to the West Bengal chief secretary, without waiting for the report of the State HRC, or the report of the NHRC team which is at present in Nandigram, it added.
“Any citizen of the country has the right to express his or her opinion on any issue, but as the head of an institution like the NHRC it is expected that all facts should be verified before such an indictment is made of a state government.
“The minimum requirement is to give the state government a hearing. By not doing so, we regret to say that your statement shows bias and prejudice and we apprehend that it will influence any report by the institution you head,” the memorandum maintained.
It also objected to the comparison Babu drew between the 2001 Gujarat riots and Nandigram.
“Gujarat witnessed the worst communal violence the country has ever witnessed since independence. Over 2,000 innocent people were killed in a state-sponsored pogrom against Muslims; scores of women were raped, the whole state was witness to loot, plunder, burning of houses and destruction of crores worth of property, over 100 religious places and burial grounds of Muslims were destroyed, police reports were not filed, lakhs were driven from their homes.
“Even today, thousands of victims of the communal violence in Gujarat remain displaced, waiting for justice, which has eluded them for over five years. Superficial comparisons with Nandigram tend to undermine and trivialize the trauma and the suffering of the Muslim minorities in Gujarat,” the memorandum maintained.
In Nandigram, since Nov 12 when the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was deployed and the police and district administration officials could enter Nandigram, “the violence could be stopped and steps could be taken to restore normalcy.
“A large number (of eople) who had fled from the villages initially, have already returned home,” the memorandum pointed out.
Nandigram in East Midnapore has witnessed violent clashes between CPI-M supporters and members of an anti-land acquisition group since January, leaving 34 people dead, scores injured and hundreds homeless.