Notice to Assam government for baton charge on students

The Assam Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on Wednesday issued notice to the commissioner and secretary of the state home department over allegations of police atrocities on some college students.

A division bench headed by AHRC chairman Justice (retd) Aftab H. Saikia issued the orders after taking suo motu cognizance of a news item published in various newspapers on the incident and asked the home department to submit a report to the commission within 30 days.

Many newspapers had reported that police and paramilitary personnel on April 20 baton-charged students of many colleges, who were also activists of the Students' Federation of India (SFI).

"As per the newspaper reports, the students were protesting in front of the Gauhati University campus demanding early re-evaluation of answer scripts of undergraduate students so as to allow them to appear in the sixth as well as the final semester examinations who are yet to pass in all the subjects in their second semester examination," said a statement issued by the commission on Wednesday.

"It is alleged that intimation was given to the university authority on April 17 by the SFI activists and other college students regarding their proposed democratic protest to be staged on the university premises for placing the said demands and, accordingly, the protesters carried out their protest on April 20 in a peaceful manner," it said.

"The university authorities, however, deployed the paramilitary forces in large numbers who stopped the protestors from entering through the university gates.

"When no one from the university authority came forward to listen to their demands, the protesting students rushed into the campus which came to be retaliated by the said civil as well as the paramilitary forces by way of indiscriminately wielding their batons injuring as many as 50 students, 20 seriously, and two of the workmen from the university union," the statement said.