Some key members of NHRC team probing post-poll violence had BJP background
KOLKATA: Some among the seven members who are part of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)'s committee to probe the post-poll violence in Bengal are associated with the BJP.
The seven-member team comprises Rajiv Jain, head of the committee; Atif Rasheed, vice-chairperson of National Commission for Minorities; Rajulben L Desai, member, National Commission for Women; Santosh Mehra, Director General (Investigation); Pradip Kumar Panja, Registrar, West Bengal State Human Rights Commission; Raju Mukherjee, Member Secretary, West Bengal State Legal Service Authority. The members who had a background with BJP include Atif Rasheed and Rajulben L Desai.
According to the Twitter handle of Atif Rasheed(@AtifBJP), it was mentioned that he was the former president of the students' union of ABVP of Satyawati College.
Sources said Rasheed served as the president of Delhi BJP's minority morcha and later became its national executive member. He contested the Delhi Municipal election in 2012 on a BJP ticket. He also served at an RSS-backed organisation Swadeshi Jagran Mancha for two years.
The NHRC website also mentions the personal biodata of Rajulben L Desai who is a member of the National Commission for Women since 2019 and was associated with Gujarat BJP's mahila morcha.
She also served as a member of the Gujarat State Commission for Protection of Child Rights. She assumed the office of the National Commission of Women on March 8, 2019. She has organised several girl education awareness movements for the Maldhari community in Gujarat and has also conducted Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao movement in Gujarat.
The official website of NHRC mentions that Rajiv Jain was the Director Intelligence Bureau (IB) in the Modi government before joining the NHRC.
Following a Calcutta High Court order on June 18, directing the NHRC to form a committee to look into the allegations of the post-poll violence in Bengal, NHRC chairperson, retired Supreme Court judge Justice Arun Mishra constituted the seven-member committee on June 21.
Other persons include Santosh Mehra who was a 1987 batch IPS officer of Andhra cadre and was serving as Additional Director General of Bureau of Police Research and Development — a wing of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), until he was deputed to NHRC on May 25, this year.
On Thursday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that the BJP is using impartial agencies to malign the image of TMC. "This is nothing but a political vendetta. They cannot accept the defeat in the Assembly election in Bengal and that is why they are using all tricks to defame the government of Bengal."
