Editorial Simplified: Rhetoric of Human Rights


Relevance :  GS Paper  II (Human Rights)


Theme of the Article

Isolated innovations are not enough to stop cases of custodial torture.


Why has this Issue Cropped Up?

Recently,  in Bihar, two families received the bodies of their two sons from the police. They were victims of custodial torture.


A Common Story in India

  • That torture is ‘endemic’ across police stations in India is well known.
  • Last year there were 144 deaths in police custody.
  • About 40% of complaints received every year by the NHRC are against the police — mainly for custodial violence.

Factors Responsible for Custodial Deaths in India

  • Though forbidden by law, top police officials tolerate it, turn a blind eye to it, citing it as a ‘practical tool’, or go easy on the perpetrators.
  • Lower judiciary is frequently not vigilant in checking if arrested persons are secure in custody, have a lawyer assigned, or have the means to speak out.
  • Often, pliant doctors further weaken protections to those in custody by willingly minimising or not disclosing the nature of the harm or injuries they have sustained.
  • Oversight bodies like police complaints authorities and human rights commissions are comfortable with the slow pace of accountability from state actors and do no doggedly pursue outcomes.
  • The brazenness is strengthened when legal precedents towards torture prevention are not paid heed to.
  • South Asia is among the last regions where the political executive must grant permission before public servants can be prosecuted for acts done in the course of their work.
  • Courts have repeatedly said that torture is no part of policing and so there is no question of waiting for permission for prosecution. Yet, the executive is still asked, decisions are delayed, and trials cannot proceed.
  • According to judicial precedent, recovery of evidence made as a result of torture cannot be used in court, but without proactive lawyers and magistrates, these important details are overlooked in the early stages of the legal process. For victims of torture, this means a harder fight in courts.

Is Custodial Torture Helpful to Reduce Crime?

  • Besides being illegal and immoral, torture is not even a useful tool to stop crime.
  • Eliciting unreliable confessions — the bedrock of the use of torture — destroys the process of deciding through evidence-based means whether the accused is the real perpetrator or not.
  • Moreover, whenever it goes unpunished, torture actually supports more crime by creating a class of criminals within law enforcement.

Attempts to Restrain the use of Torture

There have been attempts to restrain the use of torture.

  • The Kerala Police Act puts the onus on all police officers to report any physical torture they know of.
  • Prisons in Telangana refuse to admit people brought into judicial custody if they appear injured; such persons are sent back to hospitals, forcing their injuries to be properly recorded.

Way forward

  • Isolated innovations are not enough to stop this horror that has embedded itself in the subculture of policing. A comprehensive solution would be to ensure that disincentives are put in place and that there is proper accountability.
  • India signed the UN Convention against Torture in 1997, but there has been no attempt to create a specific and comprehensive torture prevention law. Until we have such a law, custodial torture cannot be reduced.

Conclusion

For those who now plead on behalf of the police personnel and say “let the law take its course”, this is absolutely right. Let the effort to establish guilt or innocence be thorough and speedy.


 

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