HARTAL- FORCEFUL HARTAL A RIGHTS VIOLATION

HARTAL- FORCEFUL HARTAL A RIGHTS VIOLATION

The inconvenience and hardship caused to the people by hartals are nothing but human right violations and the people should organise themselves against such rights violations, State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) Chairman J.B. Koshy has said.He was inaugurating a Human Rights Education Club attached to the Institute of Parliamentary Affairs at Mar Thoma Higher Secondary School here on Friday,28^th September,2012.He said the Constitution assured all citizens the right to live and hartals caused much difficulty to students, shopkeepers, patients, workers, employees, and the common man, ultimately denying them their fundamental rights. The Supreme Court has strictly maintained that vehicular traffic should not be blocked in the name of hartal. Pathanamthitta has been witnessing frequent hartals in recent times, he added.Mr. Koshy said that hartal-sponsors had no right to make others join the agitation forcibly.

The SHRC chairman said that underpaid nurses in private hospitals and teachers in unaided schools were subjected to exploitation and the situation would change for the better once the authorities concerned started doing their duty with due responsibility and sincerity.Mr. Koshy said he had got reliable information on certain police officers accepting monthly payoff from the so-called granite quarry and sand mafia. He said that illegal quarrying of granite and sand would destroy nature. Unauthorized sand-mining in rivers poses threat to many bridges in the State.The SHRC Chairman said that postponing scheduled programmes for the convenience Ministers and some leaders was a sort of human rights violation. He was responding to the organisers’ plea to postpone the meeting from 10 a.m. to 12 noon for the convenience of Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan who was scheduled to inaugurate the function. The Minister failed to turn up for the function.K. Sivadasan Nair, MLA, presided over the function. P.C. Vishnunath, MLA; Babu George, district panchayat president; A. Sureshkumar, municipal chairman; T. Varghese, Principal, Institute of Parliamentary Affairs; S. Sumangaladevi, registrar; and M. Jose Paul, Principal Mar Thoma Higher Secondary School; spoke.

Prof. John Kurakar