WASHINGTON: A major rights organisation has charged that torture in India was more pervasive than in many authoritarian countries in Asia.
Asia Watch part of the larger American Human Rights Watch in a report released here entitled “Prison conditions in India” asserted that even if India was the world’s largest democracy with free elections and a multi-party election system etc. “something has gone wrong in India” because checks and balances of democracy were not working.
The slim report which Asia Watch declares was written without the co-operation of the Indian Government concludes that in areas outside those where emergency regulations prevail criminal suspects from India’s underclasses arrested for relatively minor offences are more likely to be the victims of police brutality than prisoners who have committed violent crimes against the state.
The report is based on a two week visit to India in October 1990 by Mr Aryeh Neier executive director of Human Rights Watch and Mr David Rothman professor of society and medicine at Columbia University who were separately detained briefly by officers of the Bombay police special branch and interrogated about their purposes itinerary and identity of those they had met in India.
Though prisons are supposed to be leveling institutions in which all are treated equal authors note that India and Pakistan have retained colonial era regulations which give better treatment to better off prisoners.
“Special privileges are accorded to the minority of prisoners who come from the upper or middle classes irrespective of the crimes they may have committed” the report maintains. It also asserts that corruption is at the core of the Indian police system where torture is used as a means of extracting bribes.
The report gives particular attention to the problems faced by women prisoners In addition to serving sentences and being held pending trial on criminal charges women can also be detained in “protective custody” or as “noncriminal lunatics.” According to authors the majority of women held in protective custody are rape victims imprisoned to make sure they will not appear at the trial of rapists.
Asia Watch recommends that the practice of automatically sending suspects into police detention where abuse is almost a certainty should cease. Instead procedures for legal aid bail and release should be developed and the class system should be ended. The report comes at a time when Asia Watch has along with other Organizations brought attention to the mistreatment in police custody of journalist and activist Shahabuddin of Jawaharlal Nehru University for his alleged links to Kashmiri militant groups
Mr Shahabuddin arrested on March 26 said he had been subjected to severe beatings in custody. He was granted medical examination on April 5 but authorities have refused to release the medical report to his family.
“It is shocking in a country like India which prides itself on its commitment to fundamental human rights” asserted Ms Patricia Gossman spokesperson for Asia Watch.
“For the authorities to so flagrantly violate international human rights law as they have done at every step in this case.”
Another reputed American organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) sent a letter to the Prime Minister Mr Chandra Shekhar expressing its concern over the health of Mr Shahabuddin. The organization said it had received reports that the journalist was in too poor health to appear at his hearing. The PHR represents 2000 physicians and other health professionals and called for full disclosure of the medical findings on Mr Shahabuddin
Article extracted from this publication >> April 26, 1991
