Qaisar Mansoor
Recently, in an extraordinary rebuke over police brutality, India’s chief justice has said the most dangerous places in the country for threats to human rights are police stations. Nuthalapati Ramana said that rather than being the safest places, “the threat to human rights and bodily integrity are the highest in police stations”.
“Custodial torture and other police atrocities are problems which still prevail in our society,” he told the National Legal Services Authority in a speech on Sunday in Delhi. He added that the poor bore the brunt of police brutality, but “going by recent reports, even the privileged are not spared third-degree treatment”.
One of the causes of police misconduct, he said, was that when brought in for questioning or arrested most Indians had no lawyer to represent them, leaving them at the mercy of corrupt officers.
“The lack of effective legal representation at police stations is a huge detriment to arrested or detained persons. The decisions taken in these early hours will later determine the ability of the accused to defend himself,” Ramana said.
The government said last week that 348 people died and 1,189 were tortured in police custody over the last three years.
In the recent past, the death of a Congolese citizen in police custody in India’s Bengaluru city speaks volumes about brutality and human rights violations committed by Indian police.
Joel Shindani Malu, a Congolese student died in custody after he was falsely detained by police in Bengaluru city on Sunday (1 August 2021). He died in the police custody the next day.
At least six Africans were injured after the Congolese man’s custodial death sparked protests outside the police station in Bengaluru city. The police used batons to push back the protesters and also arrested a dozen demonstrators. The protesters were members of the “Pan African Federation”, a group set up to protect the rights of African students and professionals in the city.
African demonstrators refuted the police claim that Malu had died of cardiac arrest and said that the police had falsely detained him. The police had claimed that Malu was arrested over charges of possessing a small cache of banned psychotropic ecstasy pills but died in custody after suffering cardiac arrest.
The nationals of African countries often accuse Indian police of racial bias and harassment as they face daily discrimination at the hands of police in India. The Indian police routinely detain nationals of African countries over fabricated charges, it deplored.
It is necessary to mention here that Father Stain Sway’s death in Indian police custody widely condemned by United Nations Human Rights Organization. The death in custody of Indian Catholic priest Stan Swamy, a renowned human rights and social justice advocate for over four decades, will forever remain a stain on India’s human rights record, a United Nations human rights expert said.
The ailing priest, who belonged to the Jamshedpur Jesuit Province, was arrested amid the Covid-19 pandemic on October 8 from Bagaicha, a Jesuit social action centre he founded on the outskirts of Ranchi, the capital of the eastern state of Jharkhand. He was charged for alleged links with Maoist insurgents who were said to have been behind the violence in Bhima Koregaon village in the western state of Maharashtra in January 2018. Arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that is tasked with fighting terrorism and sedition under the controversial Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Father Swamy was lodged in Taloja Central Jail, near Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra.
Father Swamy has denied all charges against him saying he has never been to Bhima Koregaon in all his life. He became India’s oldest prisoner charged with terrorism to die in custody, bail denied.
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi become prime minister of India, custodial torture in police stations in India is a common practice as police brutality, torture and extrajudicial killings surface now and then across India. Killings in police custody mostly go unpunished in India.
Indian human rights activists raised their voices highlighting Indian police torture against Muslims and minorities on many occasions.
Majority of the victims of police brutalities are Muslims and lower-caste Hindus and that the world rights bodies have often raised concerns over rising cases of deaths in police custody across India.
