Still grappling with the fallout of Nithari on its image, the Uttar Pradesh Police have got yet another reprimand. Taking serious note of the callousness shown by the police of the country’s largest state in handling cases of custodial deaths, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has given a three-month deadline for them to finish all such pending inquiries.

The directive comes as a serious move from the NHRC, since it was given out to the senior Police authorities in person. The NHRC led by its chairperson Shivraj Patil held a special meeting with the director generals in charge of prisons and human rights of UP to make this point during their visit to Lucknow recently. The Commission, in a rather pro-active mode, has started visiting capitals of states with poor human rights record to do an on the spot study and dispose of the long pending cases.

While Lucknow, for its dismal record of human rights was the obvious first stop for the NHRC, sources said its next visit was likely to visit Bihar in April.

Patil asked the police bosses to complete all pending inquiries into custodial deaths within three months. Only in exceptional cases, the case may stretch to six months, he said. Besides the Police were also pulled up for various issues ranging from failure to file FIRs and delay in launching disciplinary action and prosecution against officials found responsible for custodial deaths.

Shocked over the cases of land grabbing that were discovered at the on the spot hearing of petitions, the NHRC wondered why the guilty officials of revenue department were not take to task so far. Sources said out of around 1,000 odd cases the full Commission disposed off in three days, it received a huge number of petitions from people whose land had been usurped by powerful people who manage to manipulate land records in connivance with local revenue officials.

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