NHRC notice to UP govt on covid-19, pregnancy in Kanpur shelter

LUCKNOW: The National Human Rights Commission sent notices to the Uttar Pradesh government and police chief over reports of 57 girls reporting Covid-19 positive in a women’s shelter home in Kanpur, seven out of which have been found to be pregnant.
The commission said the “contents of the media report, if true, are enough to prima facie believe that the public servants have failed to provide safeguard to the victim girls and apparently were negligent in protecting their right to life, liberty and dignity in the custody of the state”. Earlier on Monday, the UP State Commission for Women wrote to the Kanpur district magistrate, seeking information on the seven girls found pregnant at the shelter.

The state government has been conducting random tests at centres such as old age homes and childcare centres.

In the letter addressed to the Kanpur district magistrate on Monday, the vice president of the UP State Commission for Women Sushma Singh sought details such as the date when the girls were brought to the facility, their medical reports and sections under which the girls had been brought, within 24 hours.

Singh told ET that girls involved in rape cases are brought to the centre on the directions of the courts hearing the cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act as well as through the authority of the Child Welfare Commission.

On Sunday night, Kanpur DM BDR Tiwari had told media persons that the five girls had been brought from Agra, Kannauj, Etah and Firozabad through the CWC under the Pocso Act and had been pregnant from before and that the remaining two were staying in Kanpur who had also been pregnant.