About 70 per cent plaints of rights violations are against police: R Nataraj

Chennai: Although the police have the honour and responsibility of protecting human rights, they are also accused of being the worst violators of human rights. On an average the national human rights commission receives about 70 to 80 per cent complaints against the enforcement agencies, and may be the police, says former DGP R. Nataraj.

Though there are so many other violations, especially those pertaining to women or children, or rights of elderly or disabled, and numerous other issues, the plaints against the police invariably hogged the limelight. “When I was commissioner of police, we had separate helpline with the help of NGOs, for rights violations, and this had tremendous impact.The police right from the DGP to constable was given the training in 2004 on human rights and this has become a continuous process. But despite this kind of training, violations take place. You can very well imagine what would be the case if such sensitisation programmes are not held,” Mr. Nataraj said.

He was speaking at a panel discussion on Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Chennai Reads: Worldwide Initiative for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” held at the Goethe Institut - Max Mueller Bhavan, here on Wednesday evening in cooperation with the Internationales literatur festival Berlin. On December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly had adopted the UDHR.

Mr. Nataraj called upon the civil societies to come forward and moderate and ensure that the rights are protected and security concerns are taken care of.

There was a multilingual reading of the articles of the UDHR in which poets: Anitha Thampi (Malayalam), Mamta Sagar (Kannada) and Sukirtharani (Tamil) participated. Sashi Kumar, Chairman Asian College of Journalism, Suhrith Parthasarathy, attorney, Madras High Court too took part in the panel discussion for which Milind Brahme of IIT Madras was the moderator.