Torture In India -2009: AHRC Report

“Nothing is more cowardly and unconscionable than a person in police custody being beaten up and nothing inflicts a deeper wound on our constitutional culture than a State official running berserk regardless of human rights. Article 21, with its profound concern for life and limb, will become dysfunctional unless the agencies of the law in police and prison establishments have sympathy for the humanist creed of that article instead of a rough treatment by police for getting information or confession.”

- Supreme Court of India (AIR 1981 SC 625)

Torture And Police Brutality Are Endemic In India – Indira Jaisingh

She is soo00000 right !

The Indian police can also be described as uniformed rapists, pedophiles, torturers, murderers and criminals as the excerpts from the report reveal:

• Torture in police custody remains a widespread and systematic practice in India. There is a wide consensus that the highest risk of torture occurs in the first twenty four hours of detention. There are no safeguards to ensure that a person taken into custody will have their detention recorded, have prompt access to a lawyer or impartial medical examination upon their arrival at the place of detention or at the time of his release. The lack of effective system of independent monitoring of all places of detention facilitates torture.
• Suicide does of course occur. However, examination of number cases by ACHR suggests that the causes of deaths are often a cause for concern. There are frequent allegations by the families of the victims of torture; torture that either impacted the victims actions or resulted in a death that was subsequently covered up. The explanations of the police are also often inadequate. The police regularly claim that people have committed suicide by using handkerchiefs46 or by consuming poison while in police custody.
• Case 5: On 27 April 2008, Nagaraju, a resident of Pulakunta village under Hindupur Rural Mandal (circle) in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, was allegedly tortured to death by the police at the Hindupur rural police station. He was arrested on the same day on charges of killing his wife Shantamma for dowry. The police claimed that he committed suicide in the bathroom of the police station. However, a fact-finding report by the Organisation for Protection of Democratic Rights, an NGO, revealed that the police personnel had beaten up Nagaraju publicly in the village. He suffered genital injuries. The NGO suggest his death was as a result of torture.
• A large number of reported cases of torture and custodial death result from attempts to extract a confession relating to theft or other petty offences. Thisimplies that suspects belonging to the lower economic and social strata are particularly vulnerable.
• On the night of 16 March 2008, two minor girls (names withheld), were allegedly stripped and sexually abused by Sub-Inspector L. Ali inside the lock-up of the  Bharalumukh police station in Kamrup district of Asom (Assam). The victims had gone to the police station to lodge a complaint after they were raped by three youths.

Here is the article from TOI an excerpt:

“NEW DELHI: As many as 1,184 people were killed in police custody in India in the last eight years with Maharashtra topping the chart with 192 deaths, a report said on Thursday.  The report — Torture in India 2009 — by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) released in New Delhi on Thursday stated that most of the victims were killed as a result of torture within the first 48 hours after being taken into custody.  The report is based on the data collected from April 1, 2001, to March 31, 2009, through a right to information (RTI) plea, filed with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).”

The NHRC is a toothless body, unwilling or unable to bring uniformed criminals to justice.

Here is the report from the AHRC site: Torture In India – 2009 (pdf)

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