Delhi HC seeks NHRC's stand on plea concerning police brutality during rally in West Bengal

The Delhi High Court sought a response from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on a plea seeking its indulgence on a complaint in relation to alleged police brutality during a rally organised by BJP's youth wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in West Bengal in October last year.

New Delhi:The Delhi High Court Tuesday sought a response from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on a plea seeking its indulgence on a complaint in relation to alleged police brutality during a rally organised by BJP's youth wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in West Bengal in October last year.

Justice Rekha Palli issued notice on the petition by Rohit Verma, a BJYM member and BJP volunteer, who has contended that by refusing to act, NHRC was laying to waste its powers granted to it under the law.

The matter would be heard next on November 10.

The petitioner said that he participated in the peaceful Nabanna Chalo(march to Nabanna) rally organized on October 8, 2020 in West Bengal, which allegedly became a hunting ground for the police establishment and witnessed large-scale brutality.

The petition said that the rally was a peaceful protest against the "ineffective, irresponsible, brutish, intimidatory, dictatorial and violent governance of the TMC-led State Government."

It said the protests were also directed against alleged rampant and recurrent political killings in West Bengal, including that of a local BJP leader by the name of Manish Shukla at Titagarh in the North 24 Parganas District.

The Complaint was filed to bring to the attention of the respondent, the magnitude of the egregious human and fundamental rights violations committed by the State machinery in West Bengal on the fateful day of the Nabanna Chalo rally, the petition said.

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It added that the NHRC issued notice issued promptly on the petitioner's complaint but the matter went into cold storage subsequently.

Even after a period of almost nine months having elapsed since the making of the Complaint, the Respondent had done little to nothing to bring the State of West Bengal and its police establishment to book, said the petition filed through lawyers Kabir Shankar Bose and Surjendu Sankar Das.

The petition contended that the attack on the participants was an attack on democracy and that the police and the West Bengal government acted in tandem to stifle dissent and silence by force the demands of the people of West Bengal for accountability.

The vicious attacks by the police authorities at the behest of the State Government are politically motivated and focused against the supporters of any political party or faction which is not the ruling party of the State of West Bengal, namely, the All-India Trinamool Congress (TMC), the plea further said.

The petitioner claims that in July, he sent another notice to NHRC, imploring it take immediate action on the complaint and bringing to its notice the post-poll violence upon the instructions of the newly elected TMC government.

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PTI