The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of a media report, accompanied by a photograph, that a Superintendent of Police brutally beat persons with disabilities, who were protesting outside the Collectorate, Bijnore, Uttar Pradesh on the 22nd of this month. The Commission has observed that the contents of the press report, if true, raise a serious issue of violation of human rights.
Accordingly, it has issued notices to the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh calling for reports in the matter within two weeks. According to the media report, carried on the 23rd July, 2015, a group of disabled persons came to the Bijnore Collectorate, under the banner of Rashtriya Viklang Party, to present their memorandum in support of their eight demands, which included, among others, increase in disabled people’s pension and relaxation in gas and electricity connection. When nobody, among the officers, turned up to accept their memorandum even after two hours, they sat on dharna at the Collectorate gate.
Reportedly, after sometime, the Superintendent of Police reached at the scene and asked the protesters to move away. When some disabled persons tried to present their point of view in connection with their demands, they were beaten up and forcibly removed from the gate by the Superintendent of Police and other police personnel. When the officers left, the disabled persons sat on hunger strike at the Collectorate.