NHRC team rules out rape of women in Bhatta-Parsaul

A fact-finding team of the National Human Rights Commission submitted a report to Chairperson Justice K G Balakrishnan in which the allegation that policemen had committed rape during farmers` agitation in Bhatta-Parsaul villages in May was found to be not correct, sources said.

The report is yet to be considered by the full Commission.

A "pained" NHRC has sent the team to investigate allegations of violence over land acquisition and complaints of police atrocities in Greater Noida. Four persons, including two policemen, were killed in farmers-police clashes and firing in Bhatta-Parsaul villages.

Gandhi, after a visit to the village, had claimed that women had been raped, people thrashed and houses destroyed.

Reacting to the report, the central government cast doubts on its veracity, saying one report cannot negate all the charges.

"Other agencies have gone and confirmed that women were treated in a way which we are all against. Let us see.

Views and counter views are coming. Let me see from where these reports have come," Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters.

Asked specifically about the National Human Rights Commission giving a clean chit to the UP government on these allegations, Soni maintained that the manner in which the body had conducted its study may have to be looked into.

"I do not want to comment on who had gone there from NHRC, whom did they talk to and how much time they spent there. I have full hope that they would have tried their best.

But in such matters many a times people hesitate in asking questions," Soni said.

"How much trust can the person win from the victims.

Are they ready to speak to them?" she asked.

Soni insisted that the National Commission for Women (NCW), which had also visited the affected areas, came up with a version different from the NHRC.

"Women from the National Commission for Women had gone there. Many a times it is easier for a woman to talk to a woman... One report cannot negate the whole thing," Soni said.

BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said it is "very important that the findings of NHRC are taken seriously and on the larger issue of where actually is the truth."

"If the NCW report is right or NHRC`s report is right, I don`t want to get into details, which report is right. But both the bodies and their reports have to be taken seriously and if there are contradictions in it, that makes the job even more complicated for the UP government" she said.