Custodial violence unabated year after shocking Sathankulam deaths

Rising custodial violence is the result of the inadequacy of judicial response, absence of political will and the collusion of state machinery. New legislation against abuse of police power and cultivation and training of a humane force are urgently required, writes, NAVJEET PUNIA.

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June marked the first anniversary of the gory and shocking custodial death of a father-son duo in Sathankulam, Tamil Nadu, during the pandemic. The deaths had triggered outrage in India even more as it transpired days after the brutal killing of George Floyd by cop Derek Chauvin during his arrest in Minneapolis, USA.

A year later, the scourge of custodial violence in India is unabated. On June 23, another man was beaten to death by the police for violating lockdown norms in Tamil Nadu. Around ten days ago, three members of a family charged with theft, committed suicide after alleged police torture in Goa. A Muslim youth named Junaid was fatally beaten up in police custody a couple of weeks ago in Nuh district, Haryana.

A report titled "India: Annual Report on Torture 2020", released by the National Campaign on Torture in March, shows there has been a rise in the number of custodial deaths during the past year and more than one suicide every week due to custodial torture. 

Rising incidents of custodial violence are testimony to the inadequacy of judicial response, absence of political will and the collusion of state machinery, which has successively failed to comprehend the necessity of bringing about far-reaching police reforms.

Custodial violence is routine 

Of the many systemic failures of our criminal justice system in ensuring justice and upholding equal rights for all, custodial violence is the most glaring because of its persistent and ghastly nature which turns the very protectors of law into perpetrators of crime. Some of the most horrifying incidents of brutality involve the police, entrusted with maintaining the rule of law. More astonishing than the brutality is the complacency about the routine nature of this practice. Police officers have openly said in interviews that torture is necessary to extract a confession from an accused.

From the movie industry's raucous celebration of the idea of a violent police force to public spectacles involving glorification of encounter killings, our response has indirectly legitimised the barbarism. Barring few instances of selective outrage, we have failed to empathise with the poor, a majority of who have been harassed by a discriminatory and punitive system.

The poor bear the scars

Criminal records bear ample proof of minorities and the poor being disproportionately targeted during police custody. According to the   India: Annual Report on Torture 2019, out of the 125 people who died in police custody in 2019, 60% belonged to the poor and marginalised communities, including Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims.

Majority of these people worked as daily wage labourers, small farmers, security guards, etc. and were picked up for petty crimes such as theft and burglary.

As per the UP government's own official data, of the 124 people gunned down in encounters since 2017, 47 were Muslims and 58 from other backward castes, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other marginalised communities. 

An example of police bias came to light during the Hathras gang rape in September 2020. The young Dalit victim was hurriedly cremated by police in the middle of the night after she succumbed to her injuries while her family was locked up inside.

Half-hearted judicial response

The data pointing to the conviction rate of culpable officers are not very encouraging. In an unusual conviction, a special CBI court in Kerala awarded the death penalty to two officers of the Kerala Police convicted of the brutal custodial torture and eventual death of a youth named Udayakumar in 2005.

However, condoning custodial torture and killing with only a few convictions is not the solution. A sound judicial response with a corrective approach is the need of the hour. 

Interestingly, the verdict in the Udayakumar case can be contrasted with the court's parochial approach in the P Jayaraj and J Bennicks case. The Madras High Court had observed that "a few bad apples" in the police force who committed such crimes must not go scot-free, revealing an approach that fails to trace the roots of the problem within the system itself.

Lessons from America

The US House of Representatives recently passed a police reforms act and named it after Floyd. Chauvin was also swiftly sentenced to 22.5 years in prison within a year of the incident. Such alacrity in responding to a serious crime is virtually absent in India.

Jinee Lokaneeta, a researcher who has worked extensively on the relationship between state power and legal violence, underlines the critical import of timely response in ensuring justice against state violence. 

What was also striking about the events following Floyd's murder was the immense and collective outpour of anger against racially driven police brutality in America. The incident sparked nationwide protests of an enormous scale and inspired movements for racial justice even in other parts of the world.

Rather than being treated as an isolated incident, Floyd's murder was seen as part of the history of systemic oppression of African-Americans. The phrase 'Black Lives Matter' is an expression of collective resentment against the unjust treatment of a particular community at the hands of the state. A similarly acute and collective sensitivity to crimes against minorities is yet to emerge in India.

Redressal mechanisms

Several important guidelines regarding the duties and evaluation of performance of police personnel were laid down in D.K. Basu v State of West Bengal (1997) and Prakash Singh v Union of India (2006) but their implementation remains dismal.

The arrested are entitled to several rights under Article 20 and Article 22 of the Constitution. Article 21 acts as a bulwark for personal liberty. Among remedies available under international law, Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". 

The 273^rd Law Commission Report of India carries a draft for The Prevention of Torture Bill, 2017, but it has not received necessary inputs and active participation from the states.

New legislation providing strong measures against abuse of police power is long overdue. Additionally, cultivation and training of a humane police force and improvement in their deplorable working conditions are required.

Rather than placing restrictions on their powers and autonomy, the police must be trained to actively promote certain values. Lastly, custodial violence must not be viewed as an issue confined to the police but as a problem amplified by greater structural constraints and embedded in a larger institutional framework that facilitates violence.

(Navjeet Punia is studying at the Faculty of Law, Delhi University. The views expressed are personal.)