BSF personnel using pellet guns to control smuggling, villager goes blind: NHRC told

By A Representative
In a gruesome incident, brought to light by a senior West Bengal activist, the Border Security force (BSF) appears to have begun using pellet guns to control cross-border smuggling. Binging this to light, Kirity Roy, secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), has said, BSF personnel attached with Karola border outpost under 90 Battalion fired pellets on a villager of Karola village under Dinhata-II Block and Sahebganj police station area of Cooch Behar district.
Roy, who is also national convenor, Programme Against Custodial Torture & Impunity (PACTI), said, "The victim was severely injured and became completely blind in the sudden pellet firing by BSF", adding, "Our fact finding has revealed that the victim is associated with smuggling activities. The on-duty BSF personnel without any warning fired pellets from the pump gun which caused complete blindness to the victim."
Stating that such use of pellet guns is against the the guidelines of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, which says that "using pump guns (pellets) is meant to control the crowd”, Roy, in his complaint to the chairman, National Human Rights Commission, despite this, "The present case shows BSF personnel are using pellet guns according to their own whims."
Stating that about a dozen of foreign metal bodies/ pellets are within the victim’s eye and face that were fired by BSF men, Roy said, "The poor family of the victim has no resources for his proper treatment. They lodged a complaint to the superintendent of police of the Cooch Behar district, but no action has been taken yet."
He added, "We at MASUM brought the victim and his family at our office to get fair treatment. Accordingly we took him to a nearby eye hospital, where his eyes were examined by several doctors using several pieces of equipment. Later we took him to the Regional Institute of Opthalmology (RIO) at Calcutta Medical College premises."
Roy said, the incident entails a clear violation of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The district police administration of Cooch Behar have violated the provision of section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Supreme Court Guidelines in the Lalita Kumari Judgment (AIR 2014 SC 187) which makes it mandatory for them to lodge a FIR in cases of cognizable offences.
He added, the incident also violates Article 3 (right to life, liberty and security); Article 5 (freedom from torture, cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment); Article 7 (equality before law and equal protection of laws) and Article 8 (right to effective remedy) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 6 (right to life) and Article 7 (right not to be tortured) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which both India is party.
According to Roy, the family of the person shot at, Faruk Abdulla, is very poor. He is the only earning member of the family and completely dependent on agricultural activities, a day labourer. Pellet firing by the perpetrator BSF person makes the victim completely blind.
He added, "While the Government of India has been considering implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals within 2030, where the first goal is to eliminate poverty, the BSF was found firing pellet upon the victim, making him completely blind, pushing the family further into poverty, as he is the sole earning member."
Stating that the victim migrated to different states for the purpose of better earning as there is no source of income in the bordering areas, Roy regretted, the BSF personnel are allowed impunity despite their omission in duty even after lodging of complaint by the victim’s wife before the superintendent of police, Cooch Behar district.

Comments

Lata Mangeshkar, a Dalit from Devdasi family, 'refused to sing a song' about Ambedkar

By Pramod Ranjan* An artist is known and respected for her art. But she is equally, or even more so known and respected for her social concerns. An artist's social concerns or in other words, her worldview, give a direction and purpose to her art. History remembers only such artists whose social concerns are deep, reasoned and of durable importance. Lata Mangeshkar (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was a celebrated playback singer of the Hindi film industry. She was the uncrowned queen of Indian music for over seven decades. Her popularity was unmatched. Her songs were heard and admired not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other South Asian countries. In this article, we will focus on her social concerns. Lata lived for 92 long years. Music ran in her blood. Her father also belonged to the world of music. Her two sisters, Asha Bhonsle and Usha Mangeshkar, are well-known singers. Lata might have been born in Indore but the blood of a famous Devdasi family...

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.

'Batteries now cheap enough for solar to meet India's 90% demand': Expert quotes Ember study

By A Representative Shankar Sharma, Power & Climate Policy Analyst, has urged India’s top policymakers to reconsider the financial and ecological implications of the country’s energy transition strategy in light of recent global developments. In a letter dated April 10, 2026, addressed to the Union Ministers of Finance, Power, New & Renewable Energy, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, and the Vice Chair of NITI Aayog, with a copy to the Prime Minister, Sharma highlighted concerns over India’s ambitious plans for coal gasification and the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”

Food security? Gujarat govt puts more than 5 lakh ration cards in the 'silent' category

By Pankti Jog* A new statistical report uploaded by the Gujarat government on the national food security portal shows that ensuring food security for the marginalized community is still not a priority of the state. The statistical report, uploaded on December 24, highlights many weaknesses in implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in state.

Why Indo-Pak relations have been on 'knife’s edge' , hostilities may remain for long

By Utkarsh Bajpai* The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.

Subaltern voices go digital: Three Indian projects rewriting history from the ground up

By A Representative A new wave of digital humanities (DH) work in India is shifting the focus away from university classrooms and English-language scholarship, instead prioritizing multilingual, community-driven archives that amplify subaltern voices . According to a review published in the Journal of Asian Studies , projects such as the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), the Oral History Narmada archive , and the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre are redefining how the country remembers its past — often without government funding or institutional support.

Beyond Lata: How Asha Bhosle redefined the female voice with her underrated versatility

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The news of iconic Asha Bhosle’s ‘untimely’ demise has shocked music lovers across the country. Asha Tai was 92 years young. Normally, people celebrate a passing at this age, but Asha Bhosle—much like another legend, Dev Anand—never made us feel she was growing old. She was perhaps the most versatile artist in Bombay cinema. Hailing from a family devoted to music, Asha’s journey to success and fame was not easy. Her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar, had already become the voice of women in cinema, and most contemporaries like Shamshad Begum, Suraiya, and Noor Jehan had slowly faded into oblivion. Frankly, there was no second or third to Lata Mangeshkar; she became the first—and perhaps the only—choice for music directors and all those who mattered in filmmaking. Asha started her musical journey at age 10 with a Marathi film, but her first break in Hindustani cinema came with the film "Chunariya" (1948). Though she was not the first choice of ...

Search This Blog