Dikhyaa Mohanty 
After a Scheduled Tribe lady in Odisha married a Scheduled Caste man, the villagers socially ostracized her family, according to a media report that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken suo motu notice of. According to reports, the villagers threatened to shun the woman’s family indefinitely if they did not perform the cleansing rite, which they requested if they were to be reintegrated into the community. The woman’s family members complied with the villagers’ decree, and forty of them had their heads tonsured as part of the ceremony.
The event was reported from the Rayagada district’s Kashipur block’s Baiganguda village. The top human rights body took note of the news article and stated that, if accurate, the information raised by the press report indicates a grave breach of the victims’ human rights. The local government requested a thorough investigation into the incident after a video of the family members sitting in a field with their heads shorn went popular on social media. A block-level official was sent to the village to investigate the incident. The Odisha Chief Secretary received a notification from the NHRC requesting a thorough report on the problem within two weeks.
India’s interest for the advancement and defense of human rights is embodied in the NHRC, an independent statutory body created under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. Its main responsibility is to defend and advance human rights, which are the rights to equality, dignity, liberty, and life that are guaranteed by the Constitution or enshrined in international covenants and upheld by Indian courts. Without a formal complaint of human rights infringement, the highest human rights authority might act suo motu, or on its own initiative, in response to news reports, public information, or other sources.
