On November 2, 1997 at a public meeting at Kaushambi (Manj-hanpur), chief minister Kalyan Singh openly declared that whenever the police apprehends a criminal, he should be disabled by hurting the lower half of his body by any means whatsoever so that he may not thereafter be able to have a normal life. (Quoted in the PUCL �s petition for the dismissal of the U.P. government).

The reign of terror unleashed in this north Indian state following the directives of its chief political executive to the police for unrestrained conduct, has, official figures reveal, already targeted over 200 �criminals.� As the accompanying box indicates, the majority victims in these encounter killings, ironically, are either Dalits or Muslims. Human rights� groups put the toll at over 400. Top police officials have confidentially revealed in meetings with independent members of parliament that currently, within the UP police, 32 per cent have criminal backgrounds � half that number actually have criminal cases pending against them. With the chief minister giving open license to the law and order machinery to behave in a trigger�happy fashion, the guardians of the law have had no compunctions in taking the law into their own hands in Uttar Pradesh.

Presently, U.P. has the poorest human rights� record in the country. According to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), over 46 per cent of the cases of human rights� violations received by it during 1996-97 were from that state. The NHRC has already investigated into 171 cases of custodial rapes and killings during this period. But the government is adamant against setting up a state human rights� commission. Repeated reminders by the NHRC to the UP government to set up a commission have been ignored.

The Uttar Pradesh branch of the People�s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has petitioned the President of India, under Article 356 read with Article 78 of the Indian Constitution, seeking the immediate dismissal of the chief minister �as that seems to be the only way to prevent the grossest forms of human rights� violations occurring in Uttar Pradesh.� �The petition will be heard by the Allahabad High Court on October 12,� Ravi Kiran Jain, president, UP PUCL told Communalism Combat. �Initially, the UP unit of the PUCL had urged the NHRC to be a party to the petition, to which the NHRC has shown great reluctance. Hence we are approaching the court ourselves,� he added.

The grounds for the petition to the President of India are as follows. Under Article 356 of the Indian Constitution, it is the constitutional duty of the government of India to �ensure that the government of every state is carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution�. It is therefore, the petition argues, the duty of the present Union government to recommend the dismissal of the UP chief minister Kalyan Singh by using the power accorded to it under Article 356.

�There cannot be any doubt that if the police of a state government is given a free hand to kill citizens in violation of Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution, a situation has arisen, in which the government of the state cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.� Hence the plea for dismissal.

Article 21 of the Indian Constitution provides that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty, except according to the procedure established by law. This article also confers the right on every person that he shall not be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be possible, of the grounds of such arrest and he shall not be denied the right to consult and to be defended by a legal practitioner; every person arrested and detained in custody has to be produced before the nearest magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest.

Section 46 of the CrPC provides that while making an arrest, a police officer, can touch or confine the body of a person only if the person sought to be arrested does not submit to the custody by words or action. Moreover, the petition cites Article 78. Article 78b of the Indian Constitution directs the Indian Prime Minister to �furnish such information relating to the administration of the affairs of the union.� The petition interprets that under this section, the President does not have to act on the advice of the council of ministers but may, on his own, call for �such informations� which the Prime Minister is then duty�bound to furnish.

In yet another writ petition pending before the Allahabad High Court, the UP PUCL has demanded the constitution of the state human rights� commission forthwith. Three orders of the Allahabad High Court have already been passed demanding to know from CM Kalyan Singh why his government is ignoring the directives of the NHRC. No reply has been forthcoming from the UP government and the final date for hearing this petition is slated for October 27.

A sorry state of affairs in UP indeed.