INDIA: Father dies after ten years of waiting for justice for his son 

 

Dear friends,

It has come to the attention of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) that while the Calcutta High Court granted leave on 28 July 2004 to prosecute police officers allegedly responsible for the forced disappearance of Bhikari Paswan in 1993, Bhikari’s father, a chief witness in the case, who had struggled for ten years to obtain justice, died the following day.

AHRC is gravely concerned by this and many other cases throughout India that are willfully neglected or obstructed while witnesses and material evidence are lost. The practices contributing to this state of affairs amount to a gross violation of human rights, yet they are treated as if a matter of mere administrative or bureaucratic inefficiency, rather than one of ineptitude and corruption. Your urgent action is needed to pressure the Indian authorities to ensure that perpetrators of this case are prosecuted and punished, and that compensation and assistance is given to the victim’s family.

Urgent Appeals Desk

Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)

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DETAILED INFORMATION:

Bhikari Paswan, a jute mill worker, was taken away by Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Harman Preet Singh and three of his men in the early hours of 31 October 1993 – reportedly to Telinipara police outpost, where they tortured him to death. Bhikari was never seen again, nor was his body found.

As far back as 1995 senior police investigators concluded that ASP Singh and his subordinates took Bhikari from his house that night in October; there was no question about the complicity of state agents. The questions that remained related only to what happened afterwards. However, the Indian judicial system responded to the urgent needs of the case by entangling it in technicalities, one hearing upon the next, before delivering it to the doorstep of the state’s high court. It lay there for years, through disinterest and the machinations of the perpetrators, who have since been promoted to positions of authority, rather than being suspended and properly investigated.

The efforts of human rights advocates and Bhikari’s family allowed the case to finally see the light of day in October 2003, when a special bench was called to consider it “immediately”. Nine months later, on 28 July 2004, the bench has held that government permission is not required to prosecute Harman Preet Singh, now a Deputy Inspector General, as kidnapping was not among his official duties as a police officer. Thus it has taken the Indian judiciary ten years to decide a matter that any informed person would have resolved in a few minutes. Tragically, Bhikari’s father Lakhichand Paswan, a chief witness in the case, died the following day after struggling to obtain justice for so long. He had been in a coma since shortly before the court gave its decision.

Lakhichand Paswan will never know what officially happened to his son after he saw ASP Harman Preet Singh and three of his men take Bhikari away in the early hours of October 31. He will never know where the body of his son was discarded. He was robbed of that knowledge, and the right to see the perpetrators punished, not by weaknesses in the case, but by an utterly callous and corrupted system.

The perpetrators of the case knew well that Lakhichand was ailing. They knew that without income and other means for prompt and effective medical treatment, he could not survive long enough to outlast their legal manoeuvres. They knew well that no state agency would come to his assistance. What meaning can the proceedings against these men now have in the absence of Lakhichand Paswan? After ten years, the court’s decision is a victory only for the accused.

Although Bhikari is now dead, the real victims have lived on. Lakhichand himself died after a momentous struggle that left him without even having the satisfaction of knowing that the case would proceed to court. Meanwhile, he and his wife had taken care of their three grandchildren after Bhikari’s mother remarried. Among the three, the oldest is Ajay. He is a first class student who, if he had been born to a family of means, would have many opportunities for further study ahead. Unfortunately, being in the care of his destitute grandmother, and ignored by a state whose agents were responsible for the destruction of his family, he can ill-afford to nurse dreams of a bright future. Other members of the family are daily hungry and sick; Bhikari’s sister is suffering from acute tuberculosis.

India is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, however, it has not ratified its First Optional Protocol, or the UN Convention against Torture. It is in Bhikari’s case and others like it that the significance of these international standards becomes apparent. If India were a party to the protocol, Lakhichand could have approached the UN Human Rights Committee on the ground that the delay in domestic procedure amounts to exhaustion of local remedies; likewise, the UN Committee against Torture. AHRC urges the Government of India to ratify these treaties and adhere to their standards, thereby protecting the rights of its citizens.

AHRC also urges the National Human Rights Commission of India and the West Bengal Human Rights Commission to take up this and similar other cases. The West Bengal Human Rights Commission should take steps to ensure that a small amount of government money is directed towards the needs of Ajay, his brother and sister, and other immediate family members. It should direct strong attention towards this case, to ensure that the hearings now proceed without any further delays. And the court case is no impediment to the Commission itself conducting an enquiry into why the courts have been unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion within a reasonable period of time. It is also its duty, and that of its sister organisations around the country, to expose and loudly criticise such delays that make a mockery of all claims to a great tradition of judicial independence in India.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

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