Mamata Banerjee questions NHRC’s ‘inaction’ on Assam violence

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 25

Lashing out at the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said where were the human rights watchdog body when a poor Muslim peasant was first shot by the police in Assam and then a government photographer accompanying the police party stomped the body of the man and rained blows on the man who was shot through the heart.

Addressing a gathering consisting predominantly of Bihari Muslim supporters of the TMC at the Bhabanipur constituency in Kolkata, the CM said, “You have seen (on TV) how one of our brothers was subjected to inhuman torture in Assam day before yesterday while carrying out an eviction drive. Where was the NHRC? Did they come? If anything happens in Bengal, NHRC is promptly sent to Bengal.”

“We do not carry out eviction at all. Be the squatters are Hindus or Muslims or Sikhs or Christians. What kind of people are in power? The drive for updating the National Registrar of Citizens also claimed so many lives in Assam,” she said.