New Delhi, July 4 (IANS) The Supreme Court Wednesday deferred hearing on a public suit seeking a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into alleged extra-judicial killings and violation of human rights by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel on vast stretches of the India-Bangladesh border.
An apex court bench of Justice B.S. Chauhan and Justice Swatanter Kumar directed the listing of the matter Monday when a similar petition on alleged extra-judicial killings in Andhra Pradesh would come up for hearing.
The petition said that the SIT should have officers who are from states other than West Bengal and it should report to the apex court within six months of its constitution.
The petition said that hundreds of unarmed people both from India and Bangladesh are killed or tortured by BSF personnel while trying to stop infiltration of the economically underprivileged inhabitants of Bangladesh trying to cross-over into India in search of a better life. The BSF has 80,000 personnel guarding the India-Bangladesh border, the petition said.
The Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Manch – the petitioner NGO said that ever since its inception, it has been engaged in the protection and extension of the human rights of the citizens of India in the vast area where “violation of human rights have been the most rampant therein.”
The petition said that more than 200 Indian nationals were victims of torture and extra-judicial killings by the Border Security Force between 2005 and 2011.
The BSF, the petitioner NGO said, “operate above the law. Their mechanical explanations as to how death came about is accepted as true in all cases. The statements of the eye witnesses are not recorded since no investigation is done and the case is closed.”
Seeking the apex court to lay down the procedure to be followed by the state police and the courts in dealing with such cases, the petitioner NGO has alleged that “these routine killings by the BSF and their brutal manner of operating has caused grave resentment in the public who have come to believe that the law will never be implemented.”
“Even assuming the Security Force Courts are validly constituted, is it not arbitrary, irrational and harsh that not even in a single one of the 200 cases of torture, murder and rape did the BSF authorities begin criminal prosecution and departmental action against the BSF personnel concerned,” the petition contended.
