Members of the Mahar Regiment and Assam Rifles, stripped naked, soaked in petrol and set on fire — the victims suffering third degree burns and broken limbs. But by the end of the year those named as responsible had failed to appear before the police, as the police had ordered, while the man leading the protests about the treatment of the two men was arrested and charged with illegal possession of explosives.

Every year, according to official statistics, about a thousand cases of rape of women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes are reported — many of them of rape by the police of women they have taken into custody. But complaints of rape are often not investigated, are difficult to prove and only rarely result in those responsible being brought to justice. For example, on Dec ember 1987 the Supreme Court of India expressed concern about the “pathetic state of affairs” in Gujarat, and criticized the state government for failing to act on the findings of a special commission appointed by the Supreme Court nearly two years earlier to investigate allegations of rape by the police. The commission found evidence that four police officers had been guilty of raping a tribal woman in Baruch district and that several other officials and doctors had been involved in a cover up. The Supreme Court found that no action had been taken against them. In 1988 there have been allegations of police raping women and girls in Bihar, Assam and Orissa, and although several official inquiries have been conducted into these reported events, only the Assam Government has established a judicial inquiry into the allegations. Convictions of police officers charged with rape are extremely rare, and trials, if held, are very slow. For example, on 23 January 1988 six police officers were sentenced to death and four to life imprisonment for an incident that occurred in Uttar Pradesh eight years ago. (A number of those sentenced have since been released on bail).

Those particularly liable to be tortured are the under- privileged members of Indian society, such as members of