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NHRC team member visiting Kolkata alleges attack; no police complaint lodged
The panel probing human rights violations post assembly election results in Bengal is led by Rajiv Jain, the former Intelligence Bureau chief who assumed charge as NHRC member on June 2.
Atif Rasheed, vice-chairperson of the National Commission for Minorities and a member of the team constituted by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to look into complaints of post-poll violence in West Bengal, alleged on Tuesday that he was attacked by “goons” while visiting the Jadavpur area in south suburban Kolkata.
The incident took place in the Dompara area where people who burn corpses at crematoriums or work in morgues live as a community.
Rashid Munir Khan, deputy commissioner of police (south suburban division), told HT that no police complaint was lodged by Rasheed or any NHRC member.
“A police team was escorting the NHRC team. It gave me a report. At Dompara, some people shouted slogans against the NHRC team. Some of the agitators were apparently under the influence of alcohol which is not unusual among these people. Rasheed did not lodge any police complaint. If he files one, we will certainly look into it,” Khan said.
Rasheed’s allegations comes on a day when another fact finding team set up by a civil society initiative, Call for Justice, said that the simultaneous incidents of violence across villages and towns in West Bengal hours after the assembly poll verdict came in were “not sporadic but premeditated, organised and conspiratorial”. The violence seen post assembly results in Bengal was a point of friction between Mamata-Banerjee government and the Centre.
Rasheed was among the seven people in the NHRC panel which includes a member of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission and a member of the West Bengal State Legal Services Authority.
The panel is led by Rajiv Jain, the former Intelligence Bureau chief who assumed charge as NHRC member on June 2. The other constituents are National Commission for Women member Rajulben L Desai, NHRC’s (director) investigation Santosh Mehra and deputy inspector general (investigation) Manzil Saini, West Bengal Human Rights Commission registrar Pradip Kumar Panja and West Bengal State Legal Services Authority member secretary Raju Mukherjee.
The panel members, split in two teams, are visiting north and south Bengal districts. They have already met members of more than 100 families. A camp was held in the eastern outskirts of Kolkata on Monday where many people came to give their statements.
On June 21, the Calcutta high court dismissed a petition by the West Bengal government seeking recall of the June 18 order that asked the NHRC to probe allegations of human rights violation during violence after the recent assembly polls. The high court asked the NHRC to submit its report by June 30 which is the next date of hearing of this case.
Leader of the opposition in the Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari and Lok Sabha member Locket Chatterjee raised the issue on social media and demanded action.
Debabrata Majumdar, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator from Jadavpur, said, “I heard local people protested because the NHRC team was accompanied by many outsiders. Nobody was attacked.”
