NHRC asks Chhattisgarh to compensate activists

The activists were booked for murder after they visited Chhattisgarh for a fact-finding mission about alleged human rights violations in the state’s left-wing insurgency-hit Bastar region.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the Chhattisgarh government to pay Rs 100,000 compensation each to 13 rights activists, including Delhi University professor Nandini Sundar, for being falsely implicated by the state police in two cases in 2016.

The activists were booked for murder after they visited Chhattisgarh for a fact-finding mission about alleged human rights violations in the state’s left-wing insurgency-hit Bastar region.

NHRC, a statutory public body, on July 7 directed the Chhattisgarh government to submit a compliance report along with proof of payment to the activists within six weeks. The order became public on Thursday when the state government confirmed it had received it. “We have received the directives from NHRC. The state government is taking appropriate action,” said Chhattisgarh’s chief secretary R P Mandal.

“As regards to the registration of FIR [First Information Report] against Professor Nandini Sundar and others, the DGP [director general of police DM Awasthi] has submitted that during the investigation, no evidence was found against her, Archana Prasad, Vineet Tiwari, Sanjay Parate, Manju, and Mangla Ram Karma. Hence, their names have been removed from the FIR,” the NHRC said in the order, a copy of which HT has seen.

Awasthi said the other seven accused CH Prabhakar, B Durga Prasad, B Rabindranath, D Prabhakar, R Lakshimaiya, Mohammad Nazir and K Rajendra Prasad were acquitted of all the charges by Sukma’s chief judicial magistrate in 2018.

Sundar reacted to NHRC’s directive and said they were yet to receive any compensation. “But, as and when I receive it, I plan to share the sum to support the legal aid for innocent tribals, who are falsely implicated...”