Assam: NHRC orders Rs 355 lakh compensation to human rights violation victims in Northeast

Guwahati: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has ordered Rs 355 lakh compensation to victims of 56 human rights violation cases across the Northeast.

“With the intervention of the NHRC, the state governments of Northeast have either paid or are in the process of paying the amount to the victims or their families,” NHRC chairperson Justice Arun Mishra told reporters in Guwahati on Friday.

“During the sitting, the Commission held a meeting with chief secretaries, directors general of police (DGPs) and chairpersons of State Human Rights Commissions (SHRCs) regarding the cases of human rights violations of the northeastern states,” Mishra said.

Mishra said as many as 45 encounter death and custodial deaths have been reported from Assam in the last five years from 2018 to 2023 and the cases are pending in the courts for disposal.

The rights panel heard the case of rape of a 16-year-old tribal girl by non-tribals in Kokrakjjar district in 2021, erosion of two backward tribal Buddhist villages under Margherita sub-division in Tinsukia district by Buri Dihing River.

The rights body expressed concern over the prevailing situation in Manipur arising out of Kuki-Meitei ethnic clashes since May 3 and directed the Manipur government to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to each family of the deceased.

The Commission also took up the case of the death of 57 people, injuries to 18 and missing of four persons due to negligence of NF Railway while executing a project entailing construction of tunnels of railway tracks to connect Jiribam with Imphal in a major landslide near the Tupul railway construction site in Noney district on the night of June 30, 2022.

The NHRC organized a two-day camp sitting in Guwahati to hear the pending cases of human rights violations in Northeast.