Jindal Global Law School and NLU Jodhpur organize International Conference on Professionalism in Victim Assistance

On February 22-23, 2013, the Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) and the National Law University, Jodhpur jointly organized an International conference on ‘Professionalism in Victim Assistance’. The conference was held at the JGLS campus itself. The two-day conference saw many experts from India and abroad present their papers. Along with the esteemed panelists and professionals, 38 student researchers from 12 States also presented their papers and participated in the conference..Dr. P.M. Nair, Director General, National Disaster Response Force, was the Guest of Honour at the conference. In his Inaugural Address, he emphasized on the need for institutionalization of the rights of victims and for upholding the Rule of Law. Referring to various constitutional and legal rights of victims, Dr. Nair stressed on the importance of protecting victims from delay, prolonged procedures, multiplicity of agencies, re-victimization, re-traumatization and intimidation from offenders. Further on, Dr. Nair called for victimological orientation in the training of judges, police, medical personnel, media and administrators..Mr. Justice N. N Mathur, Vice Chancellor, National Law University, Jodhpur, rued the fact that in India, the moment an offence is committed, it is considered against the society and the attention is focused on the offender and the crime, rather than the victim. He called for a change in the current offender-centric system to a victim-centric one..Professor C. Rajkumar, Vice Chancellor, O.P. Jindal University, referred to victims of the recent bomb blasts in Hyderabad and similar incidents elsewhere in the world. He focused on the importance of recognizing and upholding the rights of victims. Professor Sanjeev Sahni, Director, Centre for Victimology and Psychological Studies, pointed out the lack of victim assistance helplines in India, unlike in developed countries. Expressing serious concern over the plight of the Bhopal gas tragedy victims even after the lapse of more than 25 years, he stressed the need to find out the correct data of ‘invisible’ and ‘missing’ victims..This report was prepared by JGLS student, Shreyas Gupta.