India with almost 850 million citizens it bills itself as the world’s largest democracy. It has all the institutions of a great democracy: a bicameral parliament made up of a 245 member Council of States and a 542 member House of the People. It has the nonviolent legacy of its spiritual father Mahatma Gandhi.
But India also has a dirty secret not generally associated with a great democracy or a country founded on Gandhi an moral principles Torture.
Since 1985 Amnesty International has recorded more than 400 cases of people who have died following torture in custody in India. According to information compiled by Amnesty torture and rape occur routinely and systematically in almost every Indian State.
It is euphemistically referred to as the “third degree” in the Indian media and it is a form of abuse almost exclusively reserved for India’s poorest citizens: the landless laborers the scheduled castes tribes the illiterate and the destitute who comprise more than half the national population.
According to The Telegraph (one of India’s largest and most respected newspapers) “senior police officials admit that it is only the small fry who die in custody victims are mainly petty offenders while some are innocent.”
But politics is also a factor in India’s poor human rights record. Amnesty International has compiled evidence that people arrested because of their political views or in areas of armed conflict are frequently targets for torture while rape particularly by soldiers operating in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast states has become so common that in 1988 a newspaper headline read “Another Mass Rape by Bihar Cops.” Amnesty International has also condemned deliberate and arbitrary killings by armed opposition groups in the Punjab.
Alarmed by this persistent pattern of civil abuse many prominent citizens including journalist’s lawyer’s civil libertarians politicians and even police officials have chosen to speak out urging the government to halt police violence. Despite this successive Governments have failed to take action or even admit that torture is a problem in India.
The Statesman (another major Indian newspaper) commented in August 1989 that “the main reason why barbarous third degree methods are still used despite being illegal is that the police know full well that they are a protected species and that no harm will come to them if the odd prisoner dies in the lock up.”
Responding to 33 specific accusations of torture leveled by the United Nations between 1988 and 1990 the Indian Government either denied that torture had occurred; provided the police version of events; claimed the case was “under investigation” or failed to respond even when courts found hard evidence.
Meanwhile torture victims lacking the information or resources to pursue action find it nearly impossible to obtain redress. In more than 415 documented deaths in custody cases only six families were able to obtain compensation from Indian authorities. In one case involving a student who died in 1976 the police finally admitted after 14 years that he had in fact died in custody.
Interminable delays are common Archangel Guha a teacher who was paralyzed after police beat kicked and burned her while suspending her from a pole in 1977 is still pursuing legal action today.
One former Indian official told Amnesty: “In India public demonstrations and loud protests in the legislatures have to be organized before police officers are punished for their illegal acts.”
More often cops suspected of torturing prisoners are quietly transferred.
The Indian Government says that all torture allegations are investigated. However Amnesty International research indicates that magisterial inquiries although mandatory were carried out in only a quarter of reported death in custody cases and most inquiries were conducted by a member of the civil service not an independent authority.
Police officers of all ranks magistrates state officials and even doctors have conspired to conceal information about torture. The police version of events is often accepted no matter how implausible that explanation is.
Raju Mohite died one day after being released from police custody in July 1990. Maharashta Police claimed that Raju Mohite had died as a result of a fall. But Mohites brother alleges that Mohites toes had been smashed and the entire lower part of his body had been beaten so badly that it had turned green and black. A postmortem exam revealed 19 injuries consistent with torture. Despite this police and state officials denied any wrongdoing suggesting instead his color was the result of jaundice.
Political prisoners are often brutally tortured and untold numbers have died as a direct result. In Jammu and Kashmir detainees have been burned with irons and pierced with electric drills. Security force personnel in Assam routinely hook up electric generators to jeep engines and tum them into torture machines.
Even children are not spared third degree treatment. In June 1989 police arrested a group of children from the northwest Delhi slums for theft. In custody policemen stripped a 13yearold girl naked and beat her. They also stripped and hung a 12yearold boy from the ceiling and beat him unconscious. Another 12 year old was beaten with a leather belt. This case only came to public attention because of the work of a local civil liberties group.
“Fortunately it is no longer just civil liberties organizations that are vociferous about police crimes People are now reacting spontaneously and that is promising” says K.G Kannabiran President of the Andrha Civil Liberties Committee. “Lockup deaths have mostly involved the poorest of society people no one bothered about earlier. Now such crimes may go unpunished but not unnoticed.
Amnesty Summer/Fall 92 p.5
Article extracted from this publication >> November 13, 1992
