As the number of police firing deaths rose to 13 in Thoothukudi, a petition was moved before the Delhi High Court on Thursday seeking direct intervention of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) or an independent probe into the “unlawful killings” of protesters during the anti-Sterlite rally.
The petition filed by advocate A. Rajarajan, national vice president of National Union Backward Classes, SC/ST and Minorities, is likely to be come up for hearing before the High Court on Friday.
Mr. Rajarajan said the rights commission refused to consider his representation for an urgent hearing while ignoring the ground realities happening in Thoothukudi.
He said NHRC has simply requested a report from Chief Secretary and DGP of Tamil Nadu government even as they are the official heading the civil and police administration under whom the alleged the human rights violation took place.
“Unless otherwise the NHRC directly interferes at the earliest by its own or through an independent agency as mandated under the protection of human rights act... the unlawful killings by police will continue,” Mr. Rajarajan said.
He further contended that the commission should urgently look into the issue as there was possibility of destruction of evidence related to the unlawful killings by the state police “since they were the perpetrators, conspirators and executors of the unlawful killings.”
“It becomes the bounden duty of NHRC to protect further killings of citizens due to unlawful police firing, and also to take steps to gather evidence regarding deaths already occurred, which will be only possible through the direct intervention of the commission as a watchdog in the field or through an agency like CBI,” the plea said.
Mr Rajarajan said the police firing was done without following any existing laws of the land which regulates the conduct of police personnel during police firing and usage of force by police personnel to disperse the crowds.
He said even after the NHRC sought response from state officials, another firing took place leading to the death of a person.
