1 min readNew DelhiAug 26, 2026 03:59 AM IST
A United Nations (UN) human rights panel has raised concerns about violations against marginalised communities in India, and urged New Delhi to protect them from alleged abuse, torture, extrajudicial killings, and stripping of citizenship.
In its report released Tuesday in Geneva, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) criticised the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, and raised concerns about the subjecting of Bengali-speaking Muslims to “systematic and structural racial discrimination”.
It called for the suspension of the NRC and urged New Delhi to review its legislative framework, and “urgently address discrimination, hate speech, and hate crimes against Rohingya, Bengali-speaking Muslims, migrants, and asylum-seekers”.
The Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process was also called out in the observations, with the committee raising concern that Bengali-speaking Muslim voters were reportedly disproportionately impacted in West Bengal and Assam.