Operation Rhino of 1991 and Violation of Human Rights in Assam

Operation Rhino of 1991 and Violation of Human Rights in Assam


The concept of human rights is a very challenging issue now a day. Human rights are simply defined as the rights which every human being is entitle to enjoy and protected. These rights are civil, political, economic, social and cultural. Generally Human Rights are defined as essential claim of individual’s recognized by the society and enforced by the state. These rights are essential conditions for full development of a person as a human being. To protect all these human rights there have been a number of domestic and international documents adopted since the beginning of 20th century especially after the end of Second World War. In India also lots of provision made for this noble purpose. Many institution both government and Non-Governmental were formed to protect these rights. Many constitutional provisions are there to look after the human rights concern in India.

Though numbers of documents and provisions are there to stop violation of Human Rights in India but it really failed in limiting violation of human rights throughout the nation. Human Rights in India are violating in several grounds. Police, arm force and state agents violates human rights by using force against innocent human being, capitalist violates the human rights by exploiting poor class, minorities are being exploited by majority section of people. Woman rights and children rights are violated, people are displaced which violates the human rights.
Even several security Laws and Military activities which are enforced to protect the Human Rights had affected adversely.



In case of India several factors has been violating human rights. In this case we can specially mention about the military activities in India which has severely violated the Human Rights of the nation. This article also tries to highlights one such kind of issue. It is the violation of Human rights in Assam in Operation Rhino of 1991.

Operation rhino was an Army operation Against ULFA. It started on the night of 14th September 1991. On that night, thousands of jawans of the Indian Army belonging to crack Mountain Divisions, Kumaon Regiment, Rajputna Rifles and other units under the command of 4 Crore HQ, Eastern command went into into action. This force was aided by about a lakh paramilitary forces personnel belonging to CRPF, BSF, Assam Rifles and the states police which resulted a negative impact on human rights situation of the region.

In this operation the civil administration is virtually sidetracked and marginalized. The armed forces start their operation on the basis of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. In the operation at the district level, the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of police was totally kept in the dark. Army co-ordination committees that were set up and they had co-ordinate the actions. The armed forces, in that operation, had taken over the power and functions of civil administration and were running the whole show and conducting mass raids; arrests without informing civil authorities and their operations were usually not accompanied by Magistrates as necessary under the prescribed law. At the village level also, they were not even taking the Gaonbudha (village Head) with them. In this situation, the onuses of all acts of commissions and commission had to rest squarely on the armed forces.
The operation had resulted in mass scale human rights Violation. As a result of such a situation following incidents happened:

1.Wanton army search operates raids; mass atrocities had become common place.
2.Even the houses of sitting Member of Parliament were not spared from wanton raids. The residence of Sri Nagen Saikia, Rajya Sabha member was ransacked by an army contingent in Dibrugarh. The incident was condemned in the parliament and it came up before the privilege committee.
3.In the month of November, the army raided the house of the judicial Magistrate without proper warrants. At first the administration tried to hush up the matter, but when the press brought out the details, including the government memos, the government tried to downplay the incident by declaring that an amicable settlement had been reached after the concerned army officers expressed their regret.
4.Police officers, constable, their families including their members of armed forces on leave were not spared from raids, humiliations, tortures and even murders.
5.The Army was conducting independent interrogations and tortures. These are not empowered by the laws of the land. Even after handing over a prisoner to police custody, they were forcing the police to hand over the person again to the army who was then brought to army camps, interrogated and tortured.
In short, all kinds of human rights violation like beating, hanging, wet submarine treatment, continuously powering water, staking, frame treatment, giving electric shock were done by the army. Even deaths during Rhino operation were reported.
Several books, journals, reports and news papers had mentioned that during that army operation several people had committed suicides. There were few such known cases like
(1)Ajit Medhi Barbil, Digboi, on25 October 1991.
(2)Manoranjan Haloi, Belsor, Nalbari, on 05 November 1991.
(3)Ranjit Bargohain, Golaghat, On 03 November 1991.
So it is seen that the Operation Rhino of 1991 in Assam had led to violation of human rights on several grounds. In India the security activities like this are very short sighted. These activities are not aiming for durable solution. These types of operations under terrorist laws like POTA, TADA had challenged the norms of Human rights that are assured in Indian constitution.