While Sameer Wankhede emerged as a daring officer, who did not shy away from acting against the son of a celebrity, he was soon pelted with a barrage of allegations by Maharashtra minister and senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik. Sameer Wankhede’s religious affiliation and securing his IRS job were questioned by Nawab Malik.
The Perception of Being Discriminated Against is Overpowering Reforming criminal justice to stop targeting ‘minorities’ in India
Minority rights in India’s criminal justice system are in dire straits as revealed graphically in the institutional murder of Father Stan Swamy, the Adivasi rights activist. The authorities’ indifference to end such horrific human rights violations is also brought out in several recent reports.
Persisting violence and crimes against minority Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and ‘national or ethnic minorities’ (UN terminology) elsewhere in India including the northeast, where I was posted for several years, pose a challenge to India’s criminal justice system. The matter came up for serious consideration at the 8th session of the UN Forum on Minority Rights in the Criminal Justice System in Geneva in November 2015. The report of UN special rapporteur Rita Izsak on the subject was presented to the 70th Session of the General Assembly.
The writer is a security analyst.
THE reaction to the one-member Shoaib Suddle Commission report, which recommended that content on Islamic teachings and history be only carried in Islamic Studies textbooks was not unexpected. The report came at a time when the protests of the now banned Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan was underway and the state could not afford an upsurge in emotions.
The Council of Islamic Ideology and the National Commission on Minorities both denounced the report. However, it was on the directives of the governor of Punjab that the Department of Human Rights and Minorities Affairs withdrew the notification to implement the recommendations of the Supreme Court-appointed commission.