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

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Assam
and displacement. About 1,25,000 persons
belonging to 23,742 families who were
displaced in Bodoland areas in 1996-1998
were yet to be rehabilitated.
Women became victims of serious
human rights violations especially in
insurgency-affected areas. The security
forces targeted women for sexual violence.
Although in the rarest of the rare cases of
its kind, Havildar Satish Kumar and
Rifleman Rajinder Kumar were court
martialled and sentenced to 10 years’
imprisonment in August 2004 for raping
an Adivasi woman in Kokrajhar district on
the intervening night of 29 and 30 June
2004, most violence against women went
unpunished. 10
The budget of the Assam State Human
Rights Commission (ASHRC), the body
established by the State government to
monitor human rights situation, was
slashed by 2 lakhs for the year 2004-2005.
The State government sanctioned Rs 20
lakh against the demand for 1 crore which
forced the Assam State Human Rights
Commission to cancel investigations into
the complaints.
II. Atrocities by security forces
i. Arbitrary, summary and extrajudicial
executions
The arbitrary deprivation of the right
to life in the custody of the police, paramilitary
and armed forces and jail
authorities was widely reported from the
State. The victims include undertrials,
innocent people and suspected and
captured members of the armed opposition
groups. They were killed to extract
confession of crimes or information
pertaining to the armed opposition groups
and sometimes simply in retaliation
against the attacks by the armed
opposition groups on the security forces.
According to the Assam State Human
Rights Commission, as many as 240
custodial deaths have been reported in
Assam as on 31 December 2003. In 2001-
2002, 30 persons died in custody, of which
10 were in police custody and 20 in
judicial custody. 11 The National Human
Rights Commission registered 33
custodial deaths in Assam in 1999-2000,
22 custodial deaths in 2000-2001 and 30
custodial deaths in 2001-2002. The
number of deaths in police custody
remained high with 11 deaths each in
1999-2000 and 2000-2001, 10 deaths in
2001-2002 and 15 deaths in 2002-2003. 12
Death in the custody of armed forces
The central armed forces deployed in
Assam for counter insurgency operations
were responsible for arbitrary violations of
the right to life.
On 7 March 2004, troops of the
62nd Field Regiment allegedly picked
up two youths, Pratul Daimary, 22 yearold
2nd year Degree student of
Dhekiajuli College and Putul Daimary,
28-year old tea-shop owner from
Naoherua village under Majbat police
station in Darrang district of Assam. A
couple days after they were picked up,
their dead bodies were handed over to
21