HR violations: Remove impunity to police: PUCL, HRF

Hyderabad, May 11 (UNI) Pressing for removal of impunity to police, the People's Union for Civil Liberties and Human Rights Forum today demanded that section 30 of the Protection of Human Rights Act be amended to enable courts to take direct cognisance of human rights violations, instead of going through the committal procedure.

Vehemently condemning the killing of two men and a woman by the Gujarat police in a fake encounter, PUCL National President K G Kannabiran and HRF State Vice-President S Jeevan Kumar told a press conference here that the law-enforcing agency should not be given impunity as ''the Constitution does not allow such practice''.

Whenever encounter killings occur, a case should be registered against the police and probe undertaken, they demanded.

Opining that ''such crime'' (fake encounter killings) should be examined in the perspective of ordinary crimes, they demanded that the Government under section 31 notify for provision of a panel of special prosecutors to appear in human rights violation cases district-wise other than serving public prosecutors.

Recalling that encounter killings had its genesis during the British regime when freedom fighters, including Alluri Seetharama Raju and Chandrasekhar Azad, were done to death by the police, they claimed that this was followed by killing of dacoits in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, later members of naxalite parties, political dissidents and hired men by the faction groups.

Such killings were more prevalent in Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and were continuing unchecked in Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, they contended.

''It is not a question of inquiry and investigation into individual crimes, but a time has come when a decision has to be taken on impunity. The urgent requirement is not police reforms, but reforming the police institutions with a penal code providing in addition to civil disabilities of public servants as well as political leaders. If this step is not taken, it will legitimise crimes recognised by the International Criminal courts and target political groups by Government forces (military, para-military and police) with a view to liquidation, which is a crime against humanity,'' they opined.

UNI