conducting a judicial investigation ordered by the Punjab Government, found that 90 Sikh detainees arrested in June 1984 had been tortured in Ladha Kothi jail, Sangrur, and ordered compensation of between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 to be paid to each victim — compensation which was, it seems, eventually paid.

Complaints of torture usually concern the initial period of detention, when detainees are often not given access to a magistrate within 24 hours of arrest, as the law requires. – This is illustrated by the case of a Sikh resident in the United Kingdom, who the police said had come to India to campaign for a separate Sikh state and had conspired to commit acts of violence in New Delhi to that end. He was arrested by the Jammu police in November 1985 and was reportedly denied access to a magistrate for two months. During this phase of his detention in Jammu and Kashmir he was tortured by beatings, having a finger nail pulled out and having chillies put on sensitive parts of his body. He was tried under the TADA and, although the prosecution called 33 witnesses, the judge hearing the case ruled that no evidence of a conspiracy was produced. He was released in August 1987.

Torture complaints have frequently come from many other parts of India too. For example, civil liberties groups have reported that suspected members of Naxalite groups and their sympathizers in rural parts of Andhra Pradesh have been tortured by the local police and that suspected members of the left-wing Indian People’s Front have been tortured in police stations in villages in Tamil Nadu. In some cases concern about torture has been expressed in official forums. For example, members of the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly made allegations of torture by the police and a local branch of the Criminal Investigation Department in March 1987. Sometimes official inquiries are ordered into allegations of torture, but those allegedly responsible often fail to cooperate. For example, the police in the northeastern state of Manipur ordered an inquiry into reports that in early November 1987 two men from Tolloi village were taken to an army camp by