The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) has sought an action take report within 3 days from Rajasthan Police in the matter related to lynching of an Adivasi man. This has been done in relation to a complaint filed by CJP with the NCST on November 23, 2022. The NCST has sought the report from the Commissioner of Police, Jodhpur as well as the Director General of Police, Rajasthan.

CJP had written to NCST raising concerns over this incident where a 45-year-old tribal man from Rajasthan’s Jodhpur district died as he was assaulted by a group of people over drawing water from a tube well. As per the police, the family of the deceased alleged that the accused also abused the deceased man Kishanlal Bheel (46), from Bhomiyaji ki Ghati, with casteist slurs. The incident took place on November 6 in Soorsagar. The victim’s brother alleged that the accused prevented the victim’s family from taking him to the hospital as well and only after the police arrived was the family able to take Bheel to the hospital when he had lost his life. As per news reports, 3 accused, Shakeel, Nasir and Bablu have been arrested.

Through the complaint, CJP urged the Commission to closely monitor the case through the investigation and prosecution to ensure that substantive and exemplary justice is delivered.

Accordingly, the NCST, by invoking the constitutional provisions under Article 338A of the Constitution, has sought a report from Jodhpur CP and DGP of the state. The Commission has also put the Police to notice that if it does not receive a response within 3 days, it may exercise the powers of the Civil Court conferred on it under Article 338A of the Constitution and issue summons for personal appearance before the Commission.

The sub-clause 8 of the Article states thus,

(8) The Commission shall, while investigating any matter referred to in sub-clause (a) or inquiring into any complaint referred to in sub-clause (b) of clause (5), have all the powers of a civil court trying a suit and in particular in respect of the following matters, namely: —

(a) summoning and enforcing the attendance of any person from any part of India and examining him on oath;

(b) requiring the discovery and production of any document;

(c) receiving evidence on affidavits;

(d) requisitioning any public record or copy thereof from any court or office;

(e) issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses and documents;

(f) any other matter which the President may, by rule, determine.

The complaint may be read here.

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DEFENDING FOREST RIGHTS IN 2021

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Human Rights Defenders – Alert (HRDA) on January 31, 2022 decried Rajasthan police for its failure to arresting the main accused in the assault and torture case of RTI activist Amraram Godara.

On December 21, 2021, Godara was abducted by an SUV parked near his house and taken to an isolated location. There, the accused Nagaram, Manaram and Bankaram broke his hands, hammered nails into his legs and forced him to drink urine.He was finally thrown near a bus stand, as the assailants presumed he was dead. But Godara survived and narrated that the assailants had first tried to run him over with the vehicle. He was sent to the primary health centre Pareu village then referred to Nahta Hospital, Balotra and then finally to Jodhpur.

Godara filed an FIR with the Gida police station for attempt to murder, assault, abduction and criminal conspiracy. However, the police initially registered the complaint against unknown persons. Even after arresting four persons, the police did not arrest the main accused Nagaram – an ex-sarpanch and husband of the current sarpanch. The other accused are Pareu gram panchayat sarpanch Bankaram and local contractor Manaram. The latter often receives village level contractors from panchayats. These accused were angry with Godara for repeatedly raising corruption cases like sale of illegal liquor through RTIs.

Most recently, he sent an application to the state government under the ‘Prasashan Gaon Ke Sang’ campaign on December 15. Godara said in the document that the panchayat had paid more than the fixed amount for some work. Two days later, his allegation was investigated by a committee, who found the claim to be true. On December 19, the panchayat had to return the excess amount.

In January 2022, Godara went on a hunger strike and wrote to the Superintendent of Police about the delay in arrests. His dissent received the solidarity of the HRDA that wrote to the concerned authorities, saying, “We believe the delay in arresting the main accused who are political heavyweights in the region exposes the negligence of the police towards protection of a HRD who was subjected to torture and kidnapping. Their lax attitude has put the HRD and his family in danger of reprisal. We also fear that the main accused may interfere with the investigation.”

Therefore, they demanded action against Gida SHO Jay Ram as well.

A fact-finding report on this assault also raised several red flags such as Godara’s initial statement by the police on December 22, at 11.20 AM. By then, the RTI activist had only received first aid. His subsequent statements were added under ‘views added later’ and have not been acted upon. The report demanded that his subsequent statements be treated as his original because he was not able to provide a clear statement in the immediate aftermath of his attack.

Further, the HRDA asked the Director General of Police to ensure complete physical and psychological safety for Godara and his family and give it in writing to the NHRC within one week. It argued that the RTI activist must also receive ₹ 10 lakh as compensation.

“We believe that the role of the local police and ongoing negligence in the arrest of the main accused needs to be thoroughly investigated as we believe that the police negligence has been instrumental in this brutal assault of an HRD,” said Working Secretary Henri Tiphagne.

According to the HRDA, RTI users are among the most vulnerable and targeted human rights defenders in India. Protection of such activists is a state-duty as specified in the declaration on human rights defenders, adopted in 1998 by the UN General Assembly.

Related:

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UP: ST boy’s family cry murder following custodial torture!

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Rajasthan’s Additional Director General of Police (Police Housing) A. Ponnuchami has issued a circular (dated October 25, 2021) barring temple construction within police stations and nearby premises. The Rajasthan chapter of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has lauded the move but called for further strict implementation of the decision to ensure secular public places.

“Over past years, various police departments have created many places of worship in the name of religion, which is illegal as per the Rajasthan Religious Buildings and Public Places Act, 1954,” said Ponnuchami in the circular, before barring such construction in police areas.

As per the law, places of worship cannot be constructed in any public place, including government buildings, parks and other places, unless the District Collector and civic authorities allow it. Yet, according to PUCL President Kavita Srivastava said temple construction has become a part of police building plans. The growth of temples in police stations and other public places is a brazen encroachment done for the politics of religious competitiveness rather than genuine faith, she said. Therefore, she argued that the circular must be backed by a strong initiative to prevent such violations of the law.

“It means standing with those authorities who will face a backlash from the Hindutva and other religious forces, when they will try to implement the law,” said Srivastava.

For this, Station House Officers and others must be booked when they allow such constructions and favour those people who cause obstruction in the enforcement of this law. PUCL encouraged all government departments, including administrative authorities of the judiciary, to issue similar orders.

PUCL had previously conducted a survey in the premises of the secretariat building, the High Court and other areas and found that they housed over two dozen temples. About a dozen temples were built inside the secretariat building and premises!

“We had written several letters in the decade demanding strict implementation of the law. We are glad that, for a start, the ADG Police has taken the first step to stop the violation of the law within government departments,” said Srivastava.

Meanwhile, the State Opposition BJP said that the “illogical” order exposed the Congress-led state government’s “anti-Hindu face” because praying in police stations is an old tradition and the police are a “self-disciplined force.”
 

Related:

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“She was forced into a car violently by a male officer of the Rajasthan Police, who was not in uniform. Her mobile phone was taken away… Her statement was nor recorded… She states that one hour before she and the police party reached Dholpur, Rajasthan, they stopped for dinner at a roadside restaurant and the police party also consumed liquor,” are not words extracted from a script of the latest cop drama web series. This is what the Delhi High court observed in the case of 26-year-old Sheena Choudhary, who was forcibly detained from Delhi by the Dholpur district police on November 24, 2020. The police were allegedly acting at the behest of Choudhary’s parents who were trying to marry her off against her wishes.

Act Now for Harmony And Democracy (ANHAD) founder Shabnam Hashmi, who was in contact with Choudhary since November 20, had said the police as well as the woman’s uncle manhandled and treated her like an accused. “Choudhary was with eight young girls and boys from ANHAD at an eatery near the office. As they stepped out, Rajasthan policemen pounced at her. I was told they have taken her to Jamia Nagar police station. When I reached, she wasn’t there. I met the SHO who told the Rajasthan police that they have to first bring her to the police station, but they did not listen,” said Hashmi. 

Sheena Choudhary, was working in Dholpur as a Mahatma Gandhi National Fellow placed by the IIM Bangalore as part of the National Skill Mission. A graduate of Miranda House College and Delhi School of Social Work, Choudhary had no plans of marriage and wanted to pursue higher studies and a career.

She told the Court that her phone was not returned to her despite her repeated demands and that even the Delhi Police did not record her statement. The court observed that “All these allegations, if true, raise very serious issues with regard to the working of the police force and certainly call for investigation and appropriate action.” 

The Delhi High Court on Thursday called the Rajasthan Police’s action of forcibly taking away a 26-year-old woman  as “completely unjustified”. According to news reports a bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Rajnish Bhatnagar said, “It was not open for the male force to forcibly push Sheena into a car. We have already noticed that she was not an accused and was stated to be a victim of the offence in the FIR registered by father and uncle of Sheena.”

Sheena was brought back to Delhi and produced before the court via video conferencing, and narrated how she left her home after her family pressured her to get married, and how the Rajasthan Police forcibly took her to Dhaulpur to record her statement before a magistrate. The court was hearing a petition filed by the woman, through her pairokar (friend), seeking her own production and safety, stated news reports.

She told the court that her “mobile phone was snatched by the officials” and while on their way to Dhaulpur, they stopped the vehicle for dinner at a roadside restaurant where the “police officials consumed liquor.” The bench took cognisance of the allegations saying it raises “serious issues with regard to working of the police force and call for an investigation” and directed the “ State of Rajasthan to look into the aforesaid aspects and an inquiry be made and take appropriate action accordingly.” 

The bench was also critical of the fact that the woman was driven all the way to Rajasthan for recording of her statement before a magistrate which could have been done before a court in Delhi, “we find that the action taken by the Rajasthan Police to forcibly take away the woman to Rajasthan with them despite her saying that she was at the office of ANHAD (NGO) was completely unjustified.” The court added that incident has left both the woman and her family members in a state of shock.

The woman had told the court that she was taken away from Delhi by the Rajasthan Police on Tuesday while she was having lunch in Jamia Nagar with her friends. On seeing the police party, she started running and screaming for help, however, she was forcibly caught by the officials and pushed into their vehicle. Her father reportedly filed a police complaint in Dholpur, Rajasthan, which is also her place of work for the alleged offences of “kidnapping, abduction to compel for marriage and wrongful confinement.” It was in pursuance of that FIR, that Rajasthan Police came to Delhi and picked her up.

Meanwhile, the woman’s father Satinder Kumar told the court that their entire family was highly educated and “encouraged their children to go for higher studies”. He said his daughter had “not conveyed to him properly that she wanted to study further and did not want to marry at this stage.” He has assured the court that the family will not pressurise her to get married and urged the bench to make his daughter understand to come home.

However, Sheena said marriage was not in her priority list and that she was under family pressure to get married and was feeling threatened and scared due to which she had to run away. But, she clarified that she does not want any action against her family and was only concerned about her own safety.

The bench after interacting with the woman, and her father and uncle noted, “It appeared to us that the desire expressed by the woman that she does not want to get married to anyone at this stage and this did not register to the minds of parents and relatives who were keen to get her married” adding that “the incident has sent a clear message that the woman does not want to get married at this stage,” the matter is listed for further hearing on December 5.

The court directed the Delhi Police to drop her to the residence of activist Shabnam Hashmi, the pairokar who has filed the petition on her behalf, and told the family not to contact Sheen, who will call them if and when she wishes to. The court asked the Station House Officer (SHO) of Jamia Nagar police station to also counsel Sheena’s father about this order and its compliance.

Sheena had earlier sought legal help from the Delhi State Women’s Commission’s Chairperson Swati Maliwal on November 23, and the Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Parliament police station on November 21 along with National Federation of Indian Women’s General Secretary Annie Raja. She made the requests to officials to ensure her safety via:

1.       A restraining order to prevent family from forcibly accosting her or contacting her

2.       A protection order to prevent physical harm

3.       A direction to local police to inform Choudhary parents not to contact her while she stayed in a place of her own choosing.

4.       A transfer to Jaipur along with security so that the woman will feel more secure.

“My family is denying my right to make my own decisions with regard to my future. They want to perform my marriage without my consent and without any say in choice of my future husband. I have known my family to be conservative in such matters. They agree with some very regressive views and attitudes that people in the community have about women,” Choudhary had said, adding instances of physical violence against girls for disobeying orders were not uncommon in her family.

Related:

Rajasthan police allegedly abduct woman who defied her parents’ dictat on marriage

Girls and young women continue to get hunted in UP, Rajasthan

Bid Curb Inter-faith marriages: Ruse to Restrict Women’s Freedom

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Rajasthan’s People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) condemned Dholpur district police on November 24, 2020 for forcibly bringing back a 26-year-old Sheena Choudhary from Delhi at the behest of her parents who are trying to marry her off against her wishes.

PUCL President Kavita Srivastava condemned the police’s attempt to deny women’s autonomy and criminalising her will.

“It is shocking that the Rajasthan police will never catch one accused of crimes against women with such speed but treat young girls who make a choice of not marrying, which is constitutional, as accused,” she said.

The police, accompanied by Choudhary’s family who allegedly lodged a false FIR of abduction, took her away to get a statement in front of the magistrate, although the PUCL said such an action was not required at that stage. Officials had initially confiscated the woman’s phone which was returned following vehement protests by the PUCL.

The organisation also contacted Inspector General Sanjib Narzary, Director General of Police M. L. Lather and Superintendent of Police Kesar Singh requesting protection for the woman who did not wish to be presented before her parents.

Act Now for Harmony And Democracy (ANHAD) Founder Shabnam Hashmi, who was in contact with Choudhary since November 20, said the police as well as the woman’s uncle manhandled and treated her like an accused.

“Choudhary was with eight young girls and boys from ANHAD at an eatery near the office. As they stepped out, Rajasthan policemen pounced at her. I was told they have taken her to Jamia Nagar police station. When I reached, she wasn’t there. I met the SHO who told the Rajasthan police that they have to first bring her to the police station, but they did not listen,” said Hashmi.

News of Choudhary’s abduction came on the eve of International Day for Elimination of Violence Against women and nearly a week after the Rajasthan Chief Minister organised Shakti Diwas for women on November 19, in the name of former PM Indira Gandhi.

“Is this the shakti [strength] he wishes to ensure? That the police will use coercion on them, use fear and force them into marriages? If Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is denying women the right to choose partners, the Rajasthan police is trying to deny them the right to say no for marriage,” said Srivastava.

Sheena Choudhary, was working in Dholpur as a Mahatma Gandhi National Fellow placed by the IIM Bangalore as part of the National Skill Mission. A graduate of Miranda House College and Delhi School of Social Work, Choudhary had no plans of marriage and wanted to pursue higher studies and a career.

According to a letter sent by Choudhary to Srivastava, she came to Delhi after her parents forced her to see a boy and threatened to stop her work when she refused the marriage proposal.

She sought legal help from the Delhi State Women’s Commission’s Chairperson Swati Maliwal on November 23 and the Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Parliament police station on November 21 along with National Federation of Indian Women’s General Secretary Annie Raja.

During each of these visits, Choudhary made the following requests to officials:

1.       A restraining order to prevent family from forcibly accosting her or contacting her
2.       A protection order to prevent physical harm
3.       A direction to local police to inform Choudhary parents not to contact her while she stayed in a place of her own choosing.
4.       A transfer to Jaipur along with security so that the woman will feel more secure.

“My family is denying my right to make my own decisions with regard to my future. They want to perform my marriage without my consent and without any say in choice of my future husband. I have known my family to be conservative in such matters. They agree with some very regressive views and attitudes that people in the community have about women,” said Choudhary.

Further, she said instances of physical violence against girls for disobeying orders were not uncommon in her family. Choudhary said many people in her community and family endorse conservative attitudes without hesitation.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, 32,260 cases of women abducted or kidnapped for forced marriage were registered in 2019 nationwide of which 1,601 cases were registered in Rajasthan.

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UP SIT probe says there is no ‘love jihad’, rules out conspiracy, outside funding
Girls and young women continue to get hunted in UP, Rajasthan
Bid Curb Inter-faith marriages: Ruse to Restrict Women’s Freedom

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In a clear violation of human rights of people in police custody, Rajasthan police forced 13 alleged accomplices of Haryana gangster Vikram Singh alias Papla, to walk through a crowded market place in Behror in just their underwear. While the police insist it was just ‘moka muayana’ or a simple ‘recreation of the crime scene’, the act raises several questions about how this is a form of psychological torture, a form of humiliation forbidden under various international conventions on the subject of treatment of inmates in prison or police custody.

According to provision laid down in the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners about Clothing and bedding:

(1) Every prisoner who is not allowed to wear his own clothing shall be provided with an outfit of clothing suitable for the climate and adequate to keep him in good health. Such clothing shall in no manner be degrading or humiliating.

(2) All clothing shall be clean and kept in proper condition. Underclothing shall be changed and washed as often as necessary for the maintenance of hygiene.

(3) In exceptional circumstances, whenever a prisoner is removed outside the institution for an authorized purpose, he shall be allowed to wear his own clothing or other inconspicuous clothing.

This sight of 13 men in their innerwear walking in a single file flanked by a heavy police cover, was recorded by hordes of people on their mobile phones. Singh had escaped on September 6 and his alleged accomplices were accompanied by around 150 policemen who trod along with them for around 2 kms before herding them back to the van. This is also a violation of their right to privacy and threatens their mental health.

Speaking of this action of the police force, Amandeep Singh Kapoor, Superintendent of Police, Bhiwadi said, “The parade was not for identification of the accused. It was only done for reconstruction of the crime scene. We were verifying their presence. New things are coming to fore in the case.” But Kapoor’s words ring hollow, especially in wake of the mild slap on the wrist which the police officers in charge got for their negligence, incompetence and possible complicity.

Vikram Singh’s escape from Behror police station was made possible by an alleged information leak that came hours before his arrest by a highway patrol. Armed with AK-47s, more than a dozen men stormed the police station making away with the gangster and sending the cops running for cover.

For negligence in the matter of Vikram Singh’s arrest, two head constables were dismissed and two senior officials, including the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) were suspended from service. The remaining 69 police officers at the Behror police station were moved to the police line with fresh deployments replacing them.
 

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Representation Image
 
Jaipur: It may come as a surprise to many but Rajasthan police is acting on fake news and communally charged social media messages. In a recent tweet on Dec 18, it busted fake news which was trying to incite communal violence.

The video was apparently from Jharkhand but was shown as an area in Rajasthan where Muslims were entering Rajput homes and attacking people. Rajasthan police stepped up and acted against the twitter handle.
 
Rajasthan police’s asked Twitter user @Ashok6510 to delete his tweet, who had tweeted a video of a brawl with the caption – “Muslim workers entered houses of Rajputs in Utambar, assaulted the daughters and sisters and attacked their homes. If the state is such in 5 hours, what will be the torture in 5 years.” In the last sentence, he hinted at Congress’s victory in the recent Rajasthan elections.
 
It may seem oddly timed and many will question why is Rajasthan Police only now taking action over fake news online, especially since a number of mob lynchings have rocked the state in the recent past, besides organisations like Karni Sena attacking school buses and warning of more violence over a movie release.
 
Rajasthan Police has made fake news an agenda as early as June this year. Some of their first tweets on the issue tagged the twitter handle @SMHoaxSlayer which is known to bust fake news in India.

In a tweet from 25 June, Rajasthan Police announced that they will be starting a series on #FakeNews, and urged people to be wary of “news, stories or hoaxes which mislead you into believing the facts which are not true” and that “often social media become easy carriers for spreading falsehood & distortion.”

 
The tweet also gives users tips on how to spot fake news by urging citizens to check if the source is credible, to read beyond the headline, to check the author, to check the date of the story and finally to consult experts before forming an opinion or taking any decision.
 
It also verified information that was attributed to them but was false. In a tweet, it busted another WhatsApp that claimed that medical students coming to collect blood at the doorstep were from terrorist organisations spreading AIDS virus and that this information was circulated by Rajasthan Police. The official twitter handle of the police denied this.

 
“Results of the recent assembly elections have given rise to misinformation claiming violence in states where Congress came out victorious. Recently, a video from Gujarat was shared as an incident of rioting after the party won in Rajasthan. Many other such false claims (1, 2) suggested Pakistani flags and pro-Pakistan slogans were raised at Congress rallies. While Rajasthan police have been trying to prevent the spread of misinformation, OpIndia came out in support of a handle circulating fake news. The cycle of disinformation gains further momentum when media outlets themselves attempt to discredit the truth,” Altnews reported.
 
Data compiled by the central ministry of home affairs show 45 people have been killed in 40 cases of mob lynchings across nine states between 2014 and March 3, 2018. The figures have gone up since then.
 
It is commendable that the police are being proactive on social media as most mob lynchings in the country in the last few years had a similar pattern of fake social media messages and WhatsApp forwards. Many innocent people were killed by angry mobs who suspected them of being child lifters.
 
Between January 1, 2017, and July 5, 2018, 33 people were killed and at least 99 injured in 69 reported cases. In the first six days of July alone, there have been nine cases of mob violence over child lifting rumours and five deaths, which amounts to more than one attack recorded every day. There was only one such attack in 2012. Most of the people were killed because of fake video forwards on WhatsApp.
 
Maharashtra police said that around 250 Twitter handles were created to spread misinformation about the Bhima-Koregaon violence and to mobilise support for allegedly holding demonstrations abroad to defame the Modi government.
 
WhatsApp has started rolling the five-chat limit for forwards in India. It had announced this move back in July in order to help check the spread of fake news and misinformation on the platform. The Facebook-owned messaging app will restrict the number of forwards to 20 chats across the globe but in India, it is testing a lower limit of 5 chats. According to news agency IANS, WhatsApp confirmed that it has begun rolling out its forward message limit in India, which is its biggest market at 200 million users. The ruling government has also asked WhatsApp to do away with end-to-end encryption to keep tabs on what people are sharing but the app hasn’t complied.
 
The request for traceability came from India’s Ministry of Electronics & IT to trace false information to its source. The Ministry said Facebook-owned WhatsApp would face legal actions if it failed to deliver.
 
Read Also:
Lynch Mobs: What WhatsApp Will Not Do and BJP Won’t Ask
Child-Lifting Rumours: 33 Killed In 69 Mob Attacks Since Jan 2017. Before That Only 1 Attack In 2012
 

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New Delhi: A probationary officer of Rajasthan Police justified concentration camps in a reply to a tweet by Shehla Rashid, former vice-president of the JNU student’s union.
 
On Oct 21, Rashid had tweeted an India Express story with the caption “India’s concentration camps!” The story was on the people in Assam who were declared foreigners and died in detention camps even though they had papers to prove their Indian nationality.
 

On Tuesday, Sandeep Saraswat, a Deputy Superintendent of Police at the police lines in Jaipur police commissionerate, replied to Rashid’s tweet. “Had the regime constructed concentration camp, person like Shehla would have been the first to be lodged into that camp and she won’t have been able to spread venom on Twitter,” he wrote in a now deleted tweet.
 

 
Speaking to The Indian Express, Saraswat (30) said that his comments were misinterpreted and he was only “defending” the state he serves. “My tweet was taken out of context and misinterpreted. I never meant that Shehla Rashid should be sent to concentration camps. I wanted to say that concentration camps were terrible places where Nazi Germany imprisoned dissenters and Jews. Rashid was wrong to suggest that such is the situation in India,” said Saraswat.
 
He deactivated his Twitter account soon. “I felt that as an employee of the state, it’s my duty to defend it. By suggesting that there are concentration camps somewhere in India, she implied that there is no rule of law in the country, which is wrong as I serve that law and order system,” he said in the report.
 
Tejaswani Gautam, Jaipur commissionerate DCP (headquarters), said in the report, “It is not in violation of the model code of conduct of police because it is not an official account and thus what he writes there is not in his official capacity of a government servant.” Gautam must not have seen the handle as Saraswat had a profile picture in full uniform.
 
Many condemned the Rajasthan police’s response and said that it reflected their ideology as they were mute spectators when cattle labourers Pehlu Khan and Rakbar Khan were lynched by a cow-protecting mob in Rajasthan. Another Muslim man was lynched recently in September for fishing near a temple.
 
It would serve Saraswat well to read how Assam’s detention camps are flouting human rights conventions by incarcerating innocent Indian citizens on the assumption of being foreigners. The Assamese populace that has not found itself in the hotly debated NRC have had their lives and families uprooted because of false accusations.
 
Sabrang India has consistently reported how Indian people in Assam have been detained in jails and detention camps alongside serious criminals who have committed murders and rapes. They have caught diseases, died in detention and even committed suicide.
 
The declared foreigners in Assam are meant to be sent to detention camps until they prove their citizenship in a higher judiciary. But what are these detention camps? Detention camps are real prisons. In the absence of detention camps, the declared foreigners are sent to prisons and are kept with prisoners. Hence the declared foreigners are neither citizens nor considered refugees there is no national prescription about their rights. To put them in prisons becomes a violation of their human rights. In this exclusive interview to Sabrang India, Adv. Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Chaudhary of the Gauhati High Court explains how the detention camps violate the rights of those who are termed Declared Foreigners
 
Watch Video:

Saraswat, being a police professional in the state of Rajasthan should know about the internment camps in Deoli, Rajasthan where thousands of Indian Chinese people were incarcerated during the Sino-Indian war in 1962. Even though the war lasted only for a month, the Indo-Chinese people were imprisoned for as long as five years.
 
Around 3000 Chinese-Indian families were rounded up from all over Bengal, Assam and the North-East and sent in trains to the internment camps. Families that had lived in India for 200 years had to give up all of their legacies and live in constant fear among the barbed wires. 

Around 26 of them died in the camp and the survivors of the camp are still waiting for reparations and an unconditional apology from the India government. The elderly Indo-Chinese population is waiting for Indian citizenship after being labelled foreigners. They were born and raised here. They have to renew their residency permit every year and it costs them over Rs. 10,000.
 

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Picking up from a previously launched smear campaign where the focus was on making Pehlu Khan and his sons look like cattle smugglers, determined to sell the cattle for slaughter and beef consumption, the chargesheet submitted before a Behror court on January 24, 2018, says Pehlu and his companions were cattle smugglers.
 
The police’s claim is based on the absence of any documents to prove that the cattle were purchased for dairy farming. They have failed to acknowledge that the cow vigilantes had torn up and thrown away the documents, thereby destroying evidence.
 
The Murder of Pehlu Khan
On April 1, 2017, Pehlu Khan, his sons Irshad and Arif a few other companions were driving up along the Jaipur-Delhi highway in Rajasthan with a few cows they had purchased at a cattle fair in Jaipur. They were returning to their village Nuh in Haryana.
 
But just as they reached Behror tehsil in Alwar district, they were attacked by over 200 Gau Rakshaks or cow vigilantes. Khan kept pleading with his assailants to let them go and even produced paper work from civic authorities that stated that the cows were purchased for milk production and not for slaughter. But the attackers tore up the documents and mercilessly beat the hapless men with sticks.
 
The Gau Rakshaks kicked and punched them causing many grievous injuries to Pehlu Khan and his companions. Khan who was a heart patient suffered cracked ribs, a bloody nose and even injuries to his eye. Two days later Pehlu died of his injuries at a private hospital.
 
How the cops botched up the case
 

• Pehlu Khan’s statement was not recorded in the presence of a magistrate, but before the police in the Intensive Care Unit of Kailash Hospital in Behror area of Alwar.
• This statement should have been treated as Pehlu Khan’s dying declaration. It wasn’t.
• Instead of focusing on the accused, the police filed an FIR against Pehlu Khan under sections 5 and 9 of the Rajasthan Bovine Animals (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration) Act 1995.
• The police only charged the accused under section 147 (rioting), 143 (unlawful assembly), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 308 (culpable homicide) and 379 (theft). After Pehlu Khan’s death, section 308 was replaced with section 302 (murder).
• The accused were never charged under harsher sections like destruction of evidence or criminal conspiracy, even though it is evident that the attack was planned.
• Also, the names of the six accused named by Pehlu Khan in his dying declaration, were subsequently removed from the FIR when a CID probe, based on cell phone location, found no evidence of the six ever having been at the crime scene.

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