The Bihar Human Rights Commission (BHRC) was in for a shock today when they received a letter, purportedly from Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, which was later found to be forged on scrutiny.
The letter, written in chaste Hindi and addressed to BHRC Chairperson Bilal Nazki, was on the letter pad of the chief minister and bore the logo of the Bihar government, Manjhi's telephone numbers, his signature and an official correspondence number.
The letter asked the Commission to 'appoint' a person as its member.
"It straightaway asks to appoint one Niranjan Prasad Yadav, son of Subhak Lal Yadav of Saur Bazar in Saharsa district as a member of the Commission. We then realised that it was a forged letter, as the person who wrote it was not aware about the appointment process to this institution, but we were also taken aback," BHRC member Neelmani said.
Neelmani said the letter bears the correspondence number 8200023 and is dated October 14.
"BHRC SP Amitabh Kumar Das has written to Patna SSP Jitendra Kumar Rana to initiate a probe in the matter. We hope to reach to the root of the matter," he said.
Neelmani said BHRC is taking the matter seriously, because there have been several complaints in recent times of people masquerading as members or employees of the Commission and duping people.
"This letter, however, could be an attempt to implicate somebody. That is why, anything could be said with certainty only after investigations," Neelmani said.
According to section 21 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, state human rights commission's chairperson or members are to be appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of a collegium consisting of the chief minister, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, chairman of the Legislative Council, leaders of opposition of both the houses and the home minister of the state.
BHRC is composed of a chairperson and two members.
