Advocates’ group lodges plaint with NHRC over shaming of accused

A group of prominent advocates has lodged a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) alleging public shaming and unlawful parade of accused persons by the police in Jammu. The complaint was lodged by 11 lawyers led by Nikhil Padha, an advocate in the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court and founder of Human Rights and Harmony.

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It came a day after a man accused of stealing was paraded on the streets of Jammu after being garlanded with shoes. Supreme Court lawyers Sonal Gupta and Reetik Jasrotia, advocates Namita Chhabra and Padamja Sharma of Delhi High Court, advocate Rameez Rena of Patna High Court, advocates Akarshan Magotra and Abrar Hussain of J-K and Ladakh High Court and lawyers Lavanya Bhatt, Rishika Chaurasia and Jiya Gupta were the other signatories in the complaint, which flagged the public shaming of alleged criminals after their arrest in Gangyal on June 11 and in Bakshi Nagar on June 24.

“We, the advocates enrolled with various courts across India, write to you with grave concern and utmost urgency regarding recent events in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir wherein police personnel engaged in unconstitutional acts of public shaming and parade-like punishments of accused persons.

“These actions, widely circulated through media and social platforms, constitute a gross violation of human rights, the right to dignity and established jurisprudence on custodial rights under Indian law,” said the complaint addressed to NHRC Chairperson Justice V Ramasubramanian. The advocates said they have observed with collective anguish and professional obligation that law enforcement authorities are bypassing constitutional safeguards and replacing lawful investigation procedures with performative public punishment, leading to irreversible damage to the dignity and fundamental rights of the accused persons.

In Jammu on Tuesday, a suspected thief, linked to a busted gang, was publicly humiliated with a garland of shoes and made to sit on the bonnet of a moving police vehicle, prompting an official inquiry.

Meanwhile in Srinagar, Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Wednesday called for punishing all those involved in public humiliation of a suspected thief in Jammu.

“Is this how Kashmiris will be treated in their own land? Stripped of human dignity! Paraded and shamed! Actually it’s a shame on the system and mindset that actively participates to humiliate people on the basis of religion and region,” the Mirwaiz said in a post on X.