Demand growing to bring reforms in police force; Muslims, Dalits and weaker sections are worst sufferers of Police excesses
India’s 23-year old failure to ratify UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) has come back into sharp focus following the brutal torture and custodial deaths of a father and son in Tamil Nadu. The custodial killing of P. Jayaraj and his son J. Benicks in the police station of Sathankulam town of Thoothukudi district in Tamil Nadu has created a nationwide uproar and outrage. It has also brought into focus the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010 which was introduced in Parliament on two occasions but lapsed.
However, this horrific incident is not an isolated one as 1731 people had died in police custody in India in 2019 alone. That’s almost five people every single day while the United Nations calls torture “a crime against humanity”. Former union law minister Ashwani Kumar is highly critical of the Indian political and legal system for failing to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture which was signed by India in 1997. Kumar who was former Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Select Committee on the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010, had filed a petition in Supreme Court in 2016 to seek the court’s help in this matter.
Crime records and survey reports show that violence by police has been reported across the nation. The United Nations rights group Campaign Against Torture (UNCAT) released its annual report on torture which was timed with the UN’s ‘International Day in Support of Victims of Torture’ on June 26. The 245-page report under title ‘India: Annual Report on Torture 2019’ stated that around 1,731 persons died in custody in India during 2019 which works out to almost five such deaths daily and most of the victims belonged to the poor and marginalised communities, including Dalit, tribal and Muslim. These included 1,606 deaths in judicial custody and 125 deaths in police custody. While during 2018, a total of 1,966 custodial deaths were reported including 147 deaths in police custody and 1,819 deaths in judicial custody. The report says: “These figures do not reflect the extent and actual incidents of custodial death and torture in the country.”
Paritosh Chakma, Director of the NCAT, stated: “Out of the 125 deaths in police custody, 75 persons or 60% belonged to the poor and marginalised communities. These included 13 victims from Dalit and tribal communities, 15 victims belonged to Muslim minority community, 37 victims were picked up for petty crimes such as theft/ burglary/ cheating/ selling of liquor illegally, gambling, etc which indicate their economic status.”
Out of the 125 deaths in police custody, Uttar Pradesh topped with 14 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu and Punjab with 11 deaths each; Bihar with 10 deaths; Madhya Pradesh with 9 deaths; Gujarat with 8 deaths; Delhi and Odisha with 7 deaths each; Jharkhand with 6 deaths; Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan with 5 deaths each; Andhra Pradesh and Haryana with 4 deaths each; Kerala, Karnataka and West Bengal with 3 deaths each; Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Manipur with 2 deaths each; and Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana and Tripura with 1 death each.
Out of the 125 deaths, 93 persons (74.4%) died during police custody due to alleged torture/foul play while 24 persons (19.2%) died under suspicious circumstances in which police claimed they committed suicide (16 persons), illness (7 persons) and injuries (1 person) while the reasons for the custodial death of five (4%) persons were unknown.
Chakma said torture methods include hammering iron nails in body, hitting private parts and applying chilly power in private parts, urinating in mouth, forcing to perform oral sex, etc.
“Torture is perpetrated to extract confession or bribes and torture methods used in 2019 included hammering iron nails in the body (Gufran Alam and Taslim Ansari of Bihar), applying roller on legs and burning (Rizwan Asad Pandit of Jammu & Kashmir), ‘falanga’ wherein the soles of the feet are beaten (Rajkumar of Kerala), stretching legs apart in opposite side (Rajkumar of Kerala), hitting in private parts (Brijpal Maurya and Lina Narjinari of Haryana), pricking needle into body (3-year-old minor of Tamil Nadu), beating after stripping (Mohammed Tanveer and Lina Narjinari of Haryana; Minuwara Begum, Sanuwara and Rumela of Assam), and kicking in belly of pregnant woman (Minuwara Begum of Assam),” stated Chakma.
The Report also underlined the fact that in a number of cases, the police made all attempts to destroy incriminating evidence of torture by cremating the dead bodies of torture victims in haste without conducting mandatory post-mortem examinations.
The report recorded four such cases including failure to conduct post-mortem in the custodial death of a 17-year-old boy (name withheld) from Tamil Nadu; hasty cremation of dead body of Hira Bajania of Gujarat to destroy evidence of torture as well as denying the families to perform the last rite as per their community’s custom; cremation of the body of Mangal Das of Tripura forcefully without conducting post-mortem examination; and hasty cremation of the body of Hanuman Koli of Rajasthan without conducting post-mortem and without even allowing his children to see his face for the last time.
Children remain vulnerable to torture and the NCRB in its “Crime in India – 2018” recorded 3,164 cases of simple hurt and grievous hurt caused by the police on 3,467 minor victims.
The prisons remained deplorable despite slews of directions given by the Supreme Court in September 2017 to improve living conditions in prisons and a total of 1,606 cases of deaths in judicial custody were recorded during 2019. Many deaths in judicial custody took place as a result of torture.
“There is absolute impunity to the perpetrators of torture. The National Crime Records Bureau under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India in its Crime in India reports from 2005 to 2018 revealed that with respect to the death of 500 “persons remanded to police custody by court”, 281 cases were registered, 54 policemen were chargesheeted but not a single policeman was convicted as on date,” added Chakma.
Torture is endemic in India and has been a part of law enforcement and administration of justice. During 2017-2018, about five custodial deaths a day took place in India. The prohibition of torture under international law is absolute and under no circumstances whatsoever can it be justified.
Former Chief Information Commissioner and former chairman of National Minorities Commission, Wajahat Habibullah said there was an urgent need for a strong law against custodial torture and murder. Speaking with Radiance, Habibullah, who heads the Executive Committee (India chapter) of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), also stressed the need for police reforms in the wake of the recent custodial incident.
In response to a question that Police still function with colonial mindset, bias against religious minorities, and treat marginalised and poor sections inhumanly, the former bureaucrat stated, “I not only agree but strongly recommend that Government of India should adopt a law banning torture in keeping with UN Conventions, if we expect to continue to be regarded as a modern democratic society. This should also form part of police reforms recommended by government appointed committees under different union governments.”
Last year NGOs ‘Common Cause’ and ‘CSDS-Lokniti’ had released a report titled ‘The Status of Policing in India’ which highlights that the police in India suffer from inadequacies and biases which might lead to such behaviour. The report was based on a survey of close to 12,000 police personnel across 21 states. It revealed that 12% police recruits never receive human rights training. This was as high as 38% in Bihar, 31% in Assam and 19% in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh.
However, Dr. KS Subramanian, former DG of Tripura Police and IPS (retd) and scholar, puts blame on the political class in the country. On Police’s biased attitude, Subramanian told Radiance: “Yes, they (police) do because their training is not socially sensitive and politicians do not want police reforms except where it suits them.” A former top cop, he honestly said that Police are politicised and participate in politics individually and collectively.
Torture is the only method of investigation known to the Indian police and the government knew it and approved of it, he said and added that police reforms did not remain a political priority for any government which came to power since Independence.
Echoing his views, renowned human rights defender Rajiv Yadav of Rihai Manch, UP, told Radiance: “Brahminical mindset is in the way of Police reforms as religious minorities, Dalits, weaker sections are always at the receiving end of the police.” He cited the example of fake encounters in UP since the Yogi government came to power in February 2017.
Even UNCAT’s annual report points out: “On 11 January 2019, four United Nations (UN) human rights experts expressed alarm about allegations of at least 59 extrajudicial killings by police in Uttar Pradesh since March 2017. The experts had written to the Indian government asking for information about 15 cases of what could be extra-judicial killings by the Uttar Pradesh police. They had also taken note of 59 cases of possible fake encounters. Most of the 15 cases relate individuals from Muslim communities living in poverty. Evidence indicates the killings took place in police custody.”
UP’s former DG of Police, Vikram Singh also voiced concern regarding the number of custodial deaths being reported each year. “The scariest dimension is the fact that nobody has been punished in the 100-odd police custodial deaths in the year 2018 and the year before,” Singh said.
India needs to pass a Prevention of Torture Bill before ratifying the UNCAT. The Bill has been recommended by the Law Commission, the National Human Rights Commission as well as the Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha when, in fact, Ashwani Kumar, was Chairman of the Committee.
As a result of India’s failure to ratify the Convention for 23 years, the situation that pertains today is that 170 countries have ratified it whilst India is in a minority of 25 who have failed to do so. The torture convention was passed in 1985 and came into effect on June 26, 1987.
Kumar told the news portal The Wire: “It’s by any standards shameful for India to be standing in line with anti-democratic regimes.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the member-nations: “Torturers must never be allowed to get away with their crimes, and systems that enable torture should be dismantled or transformed.”
After the Tamil Nadu incident, the demand is growing from various quarters that the Central Government take immediate measures in initiating police reforms in the country as minorities and Dalits are the worst victims of police excesses and torture.