The Hindu : NCW mentions `police excesses', goes soft on Gujarat Govt.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 25, 2002

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NCW mentions `police excesses', goes soft on Gujarat Govt.

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 24. Breaking its silence on the situation in Gujarat 57 days after trouble began, the National Commission for Women (NCW) today came out with a report that speaks of "police excesses", poor conditions in relief camps and insufficient relief and the apathy of society towards the plight of the victims, but does not criticise the Gujarat Government, which has come in for flak from all quarters.

After persistent questioning at the press conference, organised here to release the report, the NCW Chairperson, Poornima Advani, conceded that the Gujarat Government had "failed in its constitutional duty". Still, she was not prepared to "fix responsibility".

As for the mild tone and tenor of the report — prepared by the NCW's Committee which visited some affected areas on April 11 and 12 — Ms. Advani said a conscious effort had been made to present its observations and recommendations in a "restrained manner" to avoid "inflaming passions".

The report repeatedly referred to the violence in Gujarat as "riots"; the word communal is used in the 17-page report only once and that too in the background note on the constitution of the Committee.

This apart, there is only one mention of the communal nature of the violence. The Committee records that it "visited camps where affected persons of both communities were housed..." Asked to comment on this, Ms. Advani said, "We took it up as a women's issue."

The recommendations, in fact, begin with an assertion that "now is the time to look ahead rather than backwards", and the report concludes with a plea to the media to avoid sensationalism and present news in a "positive sense of working towards the twin goals of peace and national harmony".

Already under attack for delayed action — the NCW team visited the State a good month-and-a-half after the violence began despite the fact that Gujarat does not have a State Women's Commission — Ms. Advani sought to justify the timing of their intervention by stating that "women would not have been able to vocalise their plight at the height of the violence".

And, according to her, the Commission had been working silently all along; it had been keeping a tab on the situation through women's organisations.

Further, the Commission did not want to duplicate the reports and observations of the National Human Rights Commission and the National Minorities Commission.

"As a result of our visit, a gender perspective has been given to the relief and rehabilitation work."

On police inaction, the Committee received complaints of "abdication of responsibility by the police" and recommended an enquiry into police excesses/inaction and punitive action against those found guilty.

Stating that the women in the camps "seem to be in the grip of a fear psychosis", it noted that social service structures — including business and commercial institutions, civic and local government institutions, medical associations and charitable trusts — were not working towards building bridges of understanding.

But for this demand for action against erring police officers, the comment on the absence of public involvement in confidence-building measures and a demand for special courts to deal with cases of crimes against women, the observations and recommendations pertain primarily to the conditions in the relief camps, and legal mechanisms.

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NCW mentions `police excesses', goes soft on Gujarat Govt.