Isha Khandelwal
Shoestring Legal Aid Group Helps Poor in Rural India
In Chhattisgarh, Pressure Mounts on Lawyers Taking Up Cases of Tribal Prisoners
Guneet Kaur, Isha Khandelwal and Parijata Bhardwaj: Bringing law to the land
Isha Khandelwal is a human rights lawyers and co-founder of the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group (JagLAG), an organisation which provides free legal aid to Adivasi people in Bastar, Dantewada, Kanker, Sukma, and Bijapur. A number of Adivasi's have been harassed and accused of having connections to the violent movement linked to the Communist party, known as Maoists or Naxals. Furthermore, JagLAG has been working on cases involving police, such as cases of torture in custody, illegal detention and extra-judicial killings.
Police officials are often the perpetrators of violence against HRDs, usually with impunity. While human rights bodies exist both at the national and at the state levels, human rights defenders expressed strong criticism at their work and effectiveness. Investigations carried out by the National Human Rights Commission and the State Human Rights Commissions (SHRCs) are often either inadequate or extremely delayed.
