NEW DELHI: Several civil rights activists have called for a separate body to supervise the investigation procedures of the police and ensure confessions are got without violating human rights..
Unless the present system is modified, the role of the judiciary in protecting human rights will remain at the mercy of the police. As the police alone accounts for more than half the total human rights violations in the country, they say.
Ata five day national convention on human rights jointly organized by the National Center for Protection of Human Rights and the World Organization Against Torture, Geneva, David Ambrose, a research scholar, University of Madras, said the courts, supposed to be the guardians of human rights, have to depend on the evidence procured by torture and other inhuman ways”. And in a number of ceases innocent people are forced into confession.
In one such case before the Madras High Court, aman who complained of his wife’s disappearance was arrested by the police for murder after they found a body with stab injuries near the village. When the man did not identify the body as his wife she was tortured. Fearing further beating and torture, he signed the confession and was tried for murder. Till one day, the missing wife walked into the court room, Ambrose said. Subsequently the Madras High Court was petitioned for compensation for illegal custody, torture and sufferings due to the case”. But the Bench, after it learnt he had been reed, said another Bench would have to be constituted for that, Ambrose said. Another activist, Naveen, gave instances of students towered in Gos. In one case, student leader, Moses Fernandez, was arrested while addressing students on bandh call given by the All Goan Students Action Forum. For the next five days he was subjected to “physical and psychological torture”.
FIRST, his hands were tied behind his back and he was suspended from the ceiling by a rope. He was later taken out of the lockup and thrashed brutally by several policemen; He was forced to run in front of a jeep with the lights on. All this was repeated several times.
At the end of the ordeal, his face was swollen, blood was flowing from his ears and his body was: painted with oozing blood. Through the torture, he was asked to give up his activity as a student leader.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 17, 1992
