Human Rights violations

One of the current lead stories on The Times of India is as follows:

Figures show rise in rights violation cases against minorities

NEW DELHI: Cases of human rights violation against minorities in the country have increased in the last two years. 

The figures, disclosed by minister of state for home Shakeel Ahmad in the Rajya Sabha during the ongoing Parliament session, show that 12,794 out of a total of 32,965 cases registered with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in 2007-08 pertained to minorities as compared to 9,603 during 2006-07. 

In 2006-07, while 8,390 cases pertained to Muslims followed by 851 to Sikhs and 362 to Christians. However, during 2007-08, the figures for Muslims, Sikhs and Christians increased to 11,178; 1,003; and 613, respectively. [link]

This proves that at almost 33%,  a particular minority community accounted for more than twice its percentage share in the population. Also, if the proportion of human rights violations against religious groups have increased, the proportion of human rights violations against caste groups must have decreased. 

On the National Human Rights Commission website, there is an important instructions page. This page does not list guidelines for dealing with cases related to religious minorities. The website also provides a search facility. A search between the 1st April, 2007 - 31st March 2008 yields only 202 records. This is not surprising, perhaps the total number comes from collating data from State Human Rights commissions. 

We also came across this interesting case report:

NHRC INTERVENTIONS 

NHRC Notice to Assam Government on Communal Clashes

The National Human Rights Commission came across a distressing report that appeared in the "Tribune" Jalandar dated 16.10.08 captioned "Assam communal clashes toll mounts to 30". The press report alleged that in the recent clashes between immigrant Muslims and Bodo tribe at Rowta in the Udalguri and Darrang districts of North Assam, the death toll increased to 30. A large number of people from both the clashing communities were injured and over 70,000 persons were rendered homeless from more than 25 villages in both the districts. The Commission taking a suo-motu cognizance of this press report issued a notice to the Chief Secretary and Director General Police of Assam calling for a factual report in the matter within four weeks. 

The Commission also decided to send its Investigation Team to the affected areas to study the situation in relief camps. [link] [emphasis added]

This was the top under reported story of last year. The funny thing is that the NHRC noticed it only on October 16th and that too in a rather obscure newspaper. According to this Economic Times report, parailitary troops were deployed by October 6th.

In any case, we sincerely hope the NHRC knows what it is doing. 

We hope that the Government will provide a better statistical database and details on how cases are reported or categorized in future. For instance, we simply don't know how the anti-terror related arrests and detentions are treated, if they are accounted for and if yes, at what point does a standard police procedure become an NHRC case. We also don't know if minority-on-minority cases are counted as violations against the minority community.