Rights group vows to fight against corruption in HP

Shimla, Nov 25 (UNI) A rights group today announced the launching of the Himachal Chapter of the Himachal Pradesh Human Rights Council (HPHRC), while promising to expose politician-bureaucrat nexus and rampant corruption in the state government departments.

Addressing a press conference here, its chief patron Amar Singh Chandel said gross violations of human rights by police, negligible medical and educational facilities, depletion of environment and gross abuse of power by the corrupt politicians in the name of inviting industry in the hill-state are some of the reasons for launching its Himachal chapter.

He said the organisation was responsible for fixing at least four Director General of Police (DGPs) and Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) level officers in the recent past.

The group would soon expose the politician-bureaucrat nexus and rampant corruption in the various state government departments of the state, Mr Chandel asserted.

Claiming credit for the conviction of former Punjab DGP KPS Gill in the infamous Rupen Deol Bajaj case, he said a senior minister of the Himachal government, who had broken all records of corruption, would be exposed soon.

He also claimed credit for getting state's ADGP B S Thind arrested by the CBI in various land scams, he had committed in Punjab and Chandigarh.

Terming the arrest of Mr Thind an abberation, he said it was an unfortunate incident in the otherwise clean hill-state.

He said that the HPHRC was not getting any patronage or financial aid from anywhere and would fight the ''land mafia'', who was out to grab precious agricultural land for cheap in the name of industrialisation of the state.

''We are ready to take on the government that was taking precious agricultural lands for the setting up of special economic zones (SEZs) in the country,'' he said.

President of the newly formed Himachal Human Rights Council, Arvind Thakur, said his organisation would also take up exploitation of the youth in the call centres, drug addiction amongst youth, sorry state of government run hospitals and exploitation of workers and farmers in the state.

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