India worst in treatment of evacuated people: UN watchdog

India is the worst, says the UN watchdog on human rights violations, in matters of treatment of people evicted from their homes. And it shares this dubious distinction with Nigeria, Angola and Zimbabwe.

The latest crime attributed to the Indian state and its agencies like police, and even judiciary, is the brutal treatment of people evicted from slums in Mumbai and Delhi in the name of development, the most recent eviction being carried out in the midst of a ravaging fire in a Delhi slum on April 28.

"We cannot impose sanctions against India, but the country's image already stands quite tarnished after its treatment of villages to be replaced by the Narmada dam caught world attention," Special Rapporteur on adequate housing in the UN Commission on human rights, Miloon Kothari, told Business Standard.

Earlier, speaking at a discussion called by the Housing and Land Rights Network, he said people were being evicted from slums to meet court deadlines without giving them even the time to collect their belongings, not to speak of rehabilitation.

He added that India was creating apartheid cities where the poor were being denied the basic right to shelter.

He appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to rise above political parties and stop the evictions in Delhi and Mumbai and ensure rehabilitation in the Narmada valley.

He said rehabilitation failed in the Narmada valley despite there being a mechanism for it. "So how can you expect anything in Delhi and Mumbai slums? Three lakh people have been evicted from Delhi slums in three years without proper rehabilitation, while 5,000 people have been evicted from Mumbai slums since February 2006 alone," Kothari said.

Evictions were being carried out in Delhi and Mumbai in violation of all the international instruments on human rights to which India was a signatory, he added.

Lawyer and activist Dr Usha Ramanathan said that the slums were the result of the failure of the state to provide statutory housing for the poor.

"While Delhi masterplan promises 2,000 hectares of such housing, the only poor housing given was on 175 hectares, when slums were relocated," she said.