96 complaints from Nagaland in last 5 years: NHRC Joint Secretary

Kohima: Out of the over 1.4 lakh complaints of human rights violations received by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) during the past five years, only 96 complaints were from Nagaland.

Revealing this during a National Seminar on 'Gender, Social Justice and Human Rights with reference to North East' here today, NHRC Joint Secretary Ranjit Singh said that maximum complaints, out of 1,40,325, are from the Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Haryana while Nagaland is among the states with least complaints of human rights violation.

Nonetheless, he lamented that Nagaland is yet to constitute State Human Rights Commission.

Maintaining that NHRC is a body which recommends measures for enforcement of human rights and protection of Human Rights Act, he said around 98 per cent of the recommendations made by the Commission are accepted and implemented by the State Government.

He also said that HRC also takes up suo-motu cases of human rights violations besides conducting open hearing and camp sittings for quicker resolution of complaints.

"As a good citizen, it is important to remember that we cannot just fight for our rights but we must also do our duties as a responsible citizen of the country," said Vice Chancellor (in-charge) of Nagaland University, Prof N S Jamir in his address during the inaugural session here.

Maintaining that 'rights and duties go hand in hand', he said social justice is about assuring the protection of equal rights, opportunities as well as taking care of the less privilege members in the society.

The seminar was being jointly organised by National Human Rights Commission and Nagaland University.