People’s Watch, a Madurai-based human rights organisation has sought the intervention of State Human Rights Commission to take suo moto cognizance of the inhumane police action of handcuffing a Pocso case victim in The Nilgiris district earlier this month.

Henri Tiphagne, director of the human rights organisation People’s Watch, based in Madurai, has taken strong exception to a woman constable taking a 15-year-old Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act victim to the court handcuffed to record a statement. The victim, said Tiphagne in a complaint to the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, was accompanied by a woman police constable from Annai Sathya Home to the magistrate court in Kotagiri to record a statement under section 164. The woman police constable took the victim in a bus to Kotagiri from Ooty.

People’s Watch, the All India Network of Individuals and NGOs working with National and State Human Rights Institutions [AiNNI], Human Rights Defenders Alert –India [HRDA] and the Institution of Human Rights Education [IHRE] welcomes the appointment of Ms. M.P. Nirmala as the Chairperson of the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) in Tamil Nadu, after the position was kept vacant for more than a year.