NHRC Issues Notice to UP Govt for ‘Unethical and Inhuman’ Handling of Auraiya Accident Victims

The NHRC has sent a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over reports that bodies of victims in the recent Auraiya road accident and those injured were being carried in the same vehicle by authorities, officials said on Friday.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in a statement said it has observed that it is indeed “unethical and inhuman on the part of authorities” to put the bodies in the same vehicle in which the injured migrant labourers were asked to travel.

“Reportedly, 26 migrant labourers lost their lives and more than 30 suffered injuries in a fatal accident when two trucks, one coming from Punjab and the other from Rajasthan, collided on a highway in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh, it said.

Later, as photographs of the dead and the injured in the same truck went viral on social media, authorities sensing outrage, transferred the bodies in ambulances at Allahabad, the NHRC said.

The injured persons suffered not only physical injuries but were also under tremendous trauma from the accident. In that painful condition, they were forced to sit in the same vehicle where the bodies of those killed in the accident were kept, the statement said.

The public servants “failed to deal with the situation sensibly and acted in a cruel manner violating the right to dignity of the poor labourers,” it observed.

The NHRC said, the notice has been issued to the state’s chief secretary and he has been asked to submit a detailed report within four weeks.

The report is expected to be comprehensive, giving details of the action taken against the delinquent officers and relief or rehabilitation provided to the victim migrant labourers and their families by the state authorities, it added.

The commission would also like to know about the health status of the injured migrant labourers and status of their medical treatment, it said.