NEW DELHI: For years, Indians have tolerated police abuse, which allegedly includes beating up civilians and torturing suspects. But after recent attacks on several prominent figures, the public is finally outraged.

On street comers and in newspaper front pages, Indians for the first time are openly discussing what they see as rampant police brutality.

“Is the police force out of control?” The Times of India newspaper said in a front page article recently, one of the few times an article on police brutality has appeared so prominently in a leading newspaper.

Other newspapers have also been highlighting news of police misdeeds.

News reports say police in New Delhi battered a top government official, his family and security guard when they asked an officer to move his car blocking a road; beat up a 70-year-old professor who complained to police about a land dispute with neighbors; tortured a 65-year-old man who would not pay $1,500 in bribes; and locked up three sons of a politician in a police station for two hours after they stopped their car in a no parking area.

The government has suspended eight policemen for the actions. The rich and famous have rarely been affected by police brutality. The main victims of beatings, which are a daily occurrence in India, are the poor, who seldom file complaints against aggressive police, corrupt politicians and a slow judicial system. Frustrated police officers privately admit the beatings occur. They point to an outdated and cumbersome legal system and frayed nerves over poor treatment of police.

“Many laws are unrealistic, which are known to everyone, and the system tolerates it,” former New Delhi police chief Ved Marwah says. “The problem is many officers take extra legal action and know they can get away with.”

Courts have already disciplined police. In one case, after police beat up a suspect in the Supreme Court, India’s highest court, justices jailed some officers, suspended others and imposed heavy fines on top officers who were present.

But some lawyers and human rights activists predict that for the most recent cases the government will only do what it always has done: simply transfer the accused officers to another precinct. “The policemen will be back to their old ways for weeks later.” human rights lawyer K.G.Kannabiran predicted.

Last year, he documented the deaths of 500 suspected militants in encounters with police in Andhra Pradesh state. He said the clashes were staged and most of the victims were innocent. During that time, 33 civilians died in police custody in the state, and none of the cases is being investigated, he said.

Two months ago, police and soldiers fought each other in the southern city of Hyderabad after two children of any army soldier disappeared and police refused to search for them.

When the children’s bodies were found in a well, soldiers beat up 20 policeman and set fire to the house of a police officer they accuse of killing the children.

“The situation in the country has become so bad now, that instead of paying goons to get your dirty work done, you can now pay the police to do it,” Kannabiran said. Police officers say they work 15 hours a day, you can not pay the police to do it.” Kannabiran said. Police officers say they work 15 hours a day, sleep in crowded bar- racks and cam very low salaries. “It doesn’t surprise me that the police treat suspects as inhumanly as they themselves are treated by the government,” said political psychologist Asish Nandy. “Since the days of the British police have been used to contain violence, separatism and political problems. Unless there is some restriction on this, violence against civilians can only increase,” he said in an interview.

Article extracted from this publication >> May 13, 1994