Medha condemns police brutality in Dadri

New Delhi, July 11 (UNI) Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar today demanded an in-depth investigation by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) into Saturday's police excesses on farmers and villagers at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh.

The farmers' struggle was for their basic right to live in their natural environs while the state action was aimed at depriving them of their resource base and hand it over to the corporate sector in the name of development, she said.

''The state is forcing them to give away their livelihoods and lifestyles by compelling them to sell the land and everything attached,'' Ms Patkar said.

Arguing that the incidence was part of large-scale ''trampling upon'' of agrarian life around mega cities, she called upon the NHRC to take a position on the issue of ''urban development and its impact on the hinterlands''.

Ms Patkar, Justice (retd) Rajendra Sachar of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, Rajendra Ravi of 'Lokayan' and Bhupendra Ravat of Jan Sangharsh Vahini have written a joint letter to the NHRC chairman in this regard.

UNI XC VD HS2038