annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Uttaranchal
nearly 20 police personnel were suspended
for different offences. In January 2004,
Navin Kumar, a police constable, and two
other state police personnel were arrested
for a robbery at a house in the Balbir Road
area. Gold ornaments weighing one kg, a
computer and a Santro car were reportedly
recovered from Navin Kumar’s house. 2
The police arrested traffic constable Vinod
Kumar on charges of raping a fourteenyear-old
minor girl in Rudraprayag district
on 2 December 2004. 3
II. Atrocities against the Dalits
About 150 Dalit families of
Ambedkar settlement in Shaheed Udham
Singh Nagar district have reportedly been
denied the right to food, justice,
rehabilitation and land rights since their
illegal eviction in 1993 despite Supreme
Court ruling of February 2004 in their
favour. In February 2004, the Supreme
Court ruled that around 150 Dalit families
in Ambedkar settlement have legal rights
to over one-thousand acres of land. The
Dalit community of Ambedkar settlement
had been legally tilling the land in
question for over thirty years till they
were forcibly evicted in 1993 by the
police and other officials. The village was
reportedly demolished in connivance
with a private company M/s Escort Farms
Ltd and over 80 of the villagers were
detained for eight days on charges of
disturbing the peace. In 1992, a local
government official had declared the
Dalit settlement as ‘surplus land’ under
state law, but the private company M/s
254
Escort Farms Ltd contested the granting
of title in the Allahabad High Court. In
May 1995 the court rejected the petition
and ordered the state government to pay
one million rupees in compensation to be
used for the rehabilitation and
resettlement of the villagers. The
company moved the Supreme Court. The
Supreme Court asked the state
government to return the land to the
Dalits. But the state government failed to
respect and implement the Supreme
Court order. Due to the lack of livelihood
and rehabilitation, around 150 Dalit
families in Ambedkar settlement had
been facing severe starvation. 4
On 19 November 2004, a Dalit
bridegroom, Nand Kishore, son of police
constable Lalita Prasad Tamta, was
allegedly ill-treated in his own village
Hanera in Pitthoragarh district while
returning after his wedding in
Bagheshwar, along with the procession.
The ‘sawarnas’ (upper caste) people
allegedly blocked the Dalit “baraat”
procession and refused to let the party
pass through the road outside their houses.
Some allegedly threw dirty water at the
‘baraat’, and they not only made
derogatory casteist remarks against the
‘baraat’ but also pushed the bride’s
palanquin. The police have arrested seven
persons in this connection, and charges
have been framed against them under the
SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. 5
III. Internally Displaced Persons
The Pancheswar Dam, an Indo-Nepal