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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, JAN 7: The Haryana Government has been asked by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to ensure “full protection to the life and property” of a former state minister who had approached the Commission alleging that he and his family were being tortured as “part of political vendetta by the State Government”.
NHRC, which had received a complaint by Congress leader Tejinder Pal Singh Mann, asked the Karnal district Deputy Commisioner and top police officials allegedly responsible for the human rights violation and misuse of power to appear before the commision on January three.
In its proceedings, NHRC said, “We do hope that the administration as a whole, and the officers present here, in particular, are alive to their responsiblity of ensuring full protection to the life and property of the petitioner and the family lest any untoward incident of any kind tend to raise a strong suspicion against them in the background of the events so far, including the event susbsquent to taking cognizance of this matter by the Commission.”
The Commission, which has set January 12 as the next date of hearing, said, “The Deputy Commissioner and the other officers present are also required to ensure the personal safety of the petitioner and his family members.”
Mann’s Counsel had submitted before NHRC that “as a result of the petitioner approaching this Commission, the vendatta let loose against the petitioner by the administration and particularly these officers present there, has increased in intensity and there is a serious apprehension of threat to the life and property of the petitioner and the members of his family.”
Mann, in his complaint, had alleged that his family-members were illegaly detained in prison in false cases, where they had to undergo the “uncontrolled tyranny” of the authorities which could be gauged from the fact that amongst the 15 persons arrested, only nine were produced before the magistrate after a gap of 40 hours.
The rest were not produced for more than a week and werekept in “most inhuman and uncivilised conditions” and were subjected to “barbaric torture”, he had alleged.
Taking cognisance of the complaint, NHRC, in its earlier order, had said, “The series of transactions indicating a course of action by the concerned authorities prima facie do not rule out the likelihood of systematic course adopted for the harassment of the petitioners, which if true, would be serious violation of the petitioners human rights.”
