The Calcutta High Court appointed NHRC committee had said in its report that there is ‘Law of Ruler’ instead of ‘Rule of law’ in West Bengal and has recommended a CBI investigation in the cases of post-poll violence in the state.
The NHRC committee submitted its final report on July 12.
The report notes “In view of the present situation described above, there is need to provide justice to victims and restore their confidence in the Criminal Justice System, which can be best rendered by a neutral agency. Hence, it is recommended that all heinous cases, including murder, Unnatural Deaths, rape and grievous hurt, and complaints carrying these allegations, should be transferred to the CBI for investigation.”
It has further added that “Trial of all the above cases investigated by the CBI should be held outside the state.”
The NHRC committee has recommended a court monitored SIT to look into some cases of post-poll violence in the state.
The report notes that police were complicit in traumatising the victims of the violence. It notes “with goons of the ruling party was alleged. by most of the victims. This was manifest in several ways: victims were implicated in false cases by the Police, or Police lodged counter cases against the victims by the accused, or the Police pre-dated such counter cases (in order to provide credibility to version of the accused against the real victim), the Police registered the counter – case in graver sections of law than the primary case, Police arrested the victim in the counter case but dragged its feet on taking action on the victim's case, or Police did nothing on the complaint of victims, or Police looked the other way even when a victim was being assaulted in their presence, or Police tried to counsel victims to seek a compromise with the accused, murder case was registered as an Unnatural Death case, etc.”
The committee has noted in its report that the violence was perpetrated by the “supporters of the ruling party”. It says “The spatio-temporal expanse of violent incidents in the state of West Bengal with little efforts of State machinery to prevent or control or rectify the same is actually a larger picture of organized violence by supporters of the ruling party in retribution against persons who dared to support the other major party which lost the recent Assembly elections in the State. While some organs or personnel of the State Government remained mute spectators, some others were apparently complicit.”
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