DK has highest cases of police atrocities in state'

Mangalore, March 1: Dakshina Kannada district tops in the state in the list of police atrocities and human rights suppression said former Karnataka High Court Judge, Justice Michael F Saldanha.

He was speaking after releasing a fact-finding report “State Terrorism-Police Atrocities in the Karavali Area” which is based on people's tribunal enquiry conducted by Peoples' Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), an organization devoted to the preservation of constitutional civil liberties and human rights here on Tuesday.

When Transparency International, a human rights organization conducted a study in the year 2008, 2009 and 2010, it found that maximum number of police atrocity cases and human rights violation took place in the Dakshina Kannada followed by Udupi, Shimoga and Cickmagalur.

He said Amnesty International had already listed India as the fifth worst country with large number of human rights violation cases.

Beef traders and cattle traders were the main victims of these atrocities, Justice Saldanha said.

Citing Justice SR Nayak, Chairman of State Human Rights Commission, Saldanha said that despite he had passed 1211 orders related to human rights violations across the State, not a single accused has been punished.

Saldanha said “On November 8, 2008 when I and social activist Swamy Agnivesh visited the MSEZ site, two criminal cases were registered against us. There was also an attempt to murder me. This is the fate of people of Dakshina Kannada.” Despite 1.8 crore from the exchequer, has been spending on Police, there is no security for minorities especially for Muslims and Christians.

Some of the Recommendations

As an immediate measure, the State Government must set up Forums at the district level and the State level where individuals and their representatives will be able to point out specific instances of police atrocities and misconduct. These forums should have a monthly dialogue with the people's representatives where the action taken will have to be made public.

Similarly, at the district level and state level, the judiciary must set up a grievance cell which will be presided over by a Judge who will entertain complaints of miscarriage of Justice such as refusal to hear urgent applications, deferring orders for abnormally long periods of time and the action taken will have to be made public within a month, so that there will be total transparency of functioning.

In the cases of women's rights or atrocities and violence against women and human rights specific action is required from the state government with a public assurance.