DHAKA, Dec 20: Members of the judiciary, human rights activists and legal experts from South Asian countries asserted here on Friday that “all kinds of impunities” must go for the sake of ensuring rule of law and upholding human rights of the region’s people.

They expressed this view at the inaugural session of a two-day seminar on “Breaking the Chains of Impunity: Human Rights Intervention in South Asia”, which began here.

Organized by a Dhaka-based human rights organization, Odhikar, the seminar was attended by representatives from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Justice K M Hasan, Bangladesh’s Chief Justice, observed that “any kind of impunity means lack of accountability for human rights violations by different agents of the state.”

“Impunity, in any form, is a violation of human rights, as well as a direct threat to the rule of law which is the necessary basis for democracy.”

Zia Ahmed Awan, Pakistani human rights activist, said human rights “are being violated in this region” mainly due to absence of institutional process, at the state level, to uphold them. “Look at the behaviour of parliament and the judicial system, we have destroyed all the institutions.”

Indian participant Prof Bhuddhadeb Chowdhury said “human rights violations in India occur due to existing socio-economic and political system, where a nexus between police and the corrupt politicians control the whole situation.”

“We have human rights commission, but recommendations of the commission are always grossly ignored.”

Gopal Siwakoti of Centre for Human Rights said that human rights violations in Nepal occur “mainly due to presence of criminals in state machinery.”

“In fact this is a world of impunity, where so-called powerful nations commit crimes at will. We will not achieve anything in this region, if we fail to establish a system to punish the criminals.”

W R Sanjeewa of Human Rights Commission, Sri Lanka said that they had been trying to control the human rights violations, but they could not do so due to presence of huge corruption in the law enforcing agencies.

Earlier, director of Odhikar, Masood Alam Ragib Ahsan, presented a report on “Police Impunity: Lessons Learnt”, in which he detailed some case studies on how the police practise extra-judicial power in the country.

“Impunity arises from failure by states to meet their obligations to investigate incidents of human rights violations,” the study said.