The story so far: On August 25, in a press note, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD) issued its findings on India at the end of a review of the country’s recent human rights track record.
This session of the committee reviewed Finland, Honduras, Kuwait, and India.
The committee said that India’s law enforcement officials had carried out “extra-judicial killings, arbitrary and prolonged detention without due process, torture, ill-treatment and sexual violence” against these communities.
India responded with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stating that the Indian delegation, led by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, had “already rejected the sweeping generalisations”.
It also urged India to “ensure that public officials do not use the Special Intensive Revision process to spread racist rhetoric and take measures to curb incitement to hatred”.
The story so far: On August 25, in a press note, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD) issued its findings on India at the end of a review of the country’s recent human rights track record. This session of the committee reviewed Finland, Honduras, Kuwait, and India. The UNCERD said that it was “gravely concerned” about “reports of large-scale violations perpetrated by law enforcement officials against ethnic, and ethno-religious groups indigenous and Tribal peoples, including Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, particularly Dalits and non-citizens”. The committee said that India’s law enforcement officials had carried out “extra-judicial killings, arbitrary and prolonged detention without due process, torture, ill-treatment and sexual violence” against these communities. India responded with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stating that the Indian delegation, led by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, had “already rejected the sweeping generalisations”.
The UNCERD, in its final observations issued on August 25, recommended that India should “review the Special Intensive Revision [SIR] to ensure ethno-religious minorities’ right to participate in the electoral process and to independently investigate any reported irregularities in the conduct of the process”. It also urged India to “ensure that public officials do not use the Special Intensive Revision process to spread racist rhetoric and take measures to curb incitement to hatred”. The UNCERD noted that since it was rolled out across 12 States and Union Territories, approximately 52 million names have allegedly been removed, with West Bengal particularly affected, where a total of 9.1 million names were reportedly deleted from the register ahead of the State elections that took place in April 2026.
