Welcoming the Supreme Court verdict on bulldozer actions, Amnesty International said on Wednesday that the landmark judgment must serve as a “turning point” in the “hate campaigns” against Muslims.
In a statement, the international non-governmental organisation focused on human rights said the verdict should put an end to the “climate of impunity” around the “cruel and inhuman practice of punishing people by unlawfully demolishing their homes and properties”.
“This landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of India should put an end to the climate of impunity around the cruel and inhuman practice of punishing people by unlawfully demolishing their homes and properties,” Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said.
“We hope this judgment will mark a turning point to deter campaigns of hate, harassment and violence against minorities in India. Never again should such deeply unjust and unlawful actions be repeated in the country,” she said.
Callamard said the ruling reaffirms what Amnesty International has previously documented — “that such illegal demolitions, often instigated at the highest levels of the government against Muslims in particular, have repeatedly undermined the rule of law and due process”.
“Such lawlessness should never have been actioned and celebrated as ‘bulldozer justice’ in the first place,” she said.