In India, Torture by Police Is Frequent and Often Deadly
MEERUT, India -- Rajeev Sharma, a young electrician, was sleeping when police barged into his house a month ago and dragged him out of bed on suspicion of a burglary in the neighborhood, his family recalled. When his young wife and brother protested, the police, who did not show them an arrest warrant, said they were taking Sharma to the police station for "routine questioning." "Little did we know that we would lose him forever," said Sunil Sharma, Rajeev's brother, recounting how he died while in police custody. "Their routine questioning proved fatal," he added, sitting beside his brother's grieving widow. Rajeev
Sharma, 28, died at the police station within a day of his detention.
Police said he The case highlights the frequent use of torture and deadly force at local police stations in India, a practice decried by human rights activists and the Indian Supreme Court. A little more than a decade after Parliament established the National Human RightsCommission to deal with such abuses, police torture continues unabated, according to human rights groups and the Supreme Court. According to the latest available government data, there were 1,307 reported deaths in police and judicial custody in India in 2002. "India
has the highest number of cases of police torture and custodial
deaths among the world's democracies and the weakest law against
torture," said Ravi Nair, who heads the South Asia Human
Rights Documentation Center. "The police often operate in
a climate of impunity, where torture is seen as routine police
behavior to extract confessions from small pickpockets to political
suspects." He said that laws governing police functions were Police records show that, two weeks before his detention, Rajeev Sharma made a electrician's service call at the home of a wealthy businessman. On that day, the man reported that $500 worth of gold jewelry and about $100 in cash were missing, police said. After Sharma's detention, his brother called the police station and was told that Sharma had confessed to the theft, he said. The brother said he and other family members rushed to the station and were able to see Sharma briefly. "His eyes were red, his mouth was bleeding and he could hardly walk. They had beaten him very badly. That was the last glimpse we had," said Sunil Sharma, 35. "By the evening, the police informed us that he had committed suicide in the lockup by hanging himself with a blanket. The suicide story is a coverup; my brother died of police torture." The death in police custody sparked two days of rioting and protests in Meerut, about 45 miles from New Delhi, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Angry residents surrounded and threw stones at the police station, burned police vehicles and blocked traffic. Thousands
participated in Sharma's funeral procession; protesters demanded
an open inquest by a panel of physicians and the immediate arrests
of those responsible. Police conducted an autopsy in private,
lawyers close to the case said. But authorities did issue arrest
warrants for the man who said he had been robbed and for six police
officers, an apparent reaction to the unusual popular outcry,
family members and lawyers said. The merchant is in jail, alleged
to have participated in beating Sharma, but the police officers Although the Indian government signed the international Convention Against Torture in 1997, it has not ratified the document. Some members of Parliament have argued against ratification, saying they oppose international scrutiny and asserting that Indian laws have adequate provisions to prevent torture. Human rights advocates said Uttar Pradesh ranks highest among Indian states in the incidence of police torture and custodial deaths. Some
police officers justify the use of torture to extract confessions
and instill fear. A senior police officer in Meerut, on condition of anonymity, openly discussed torture methods with a visiting reporter. One technique, he said, involves a two-foot-long rubber belt attached to a wooden handle. "We call this thing samaj sudharak," the officer said, smiling, using the Hindi phrase for social reformer. "When we hit with this, there are no fractures, no blood, no major peeling of the skin. It is safe for us, as nothing shows up in the postmortem report. But the pain is such that the person can only appeal to God. He will confess to anything." Last September, in a written ruling in a case of police misconduct, the Supreme Court criticized the use of torture. "The dehumanizing torture, assault and death in custody which have assumed alarming proportions raise serious questions about the credibility of the rule of law and administration of the criminal justice system," the court said. "The cry for justice becomes louder and warrants immediate remedial measure." In addition, the severity of the torture problem is probably worse than statistics indicate, because victims, fearing reprisals, rarely report cases against the police, human rights advocates said. "About 40 percent of custodial torture cases are not even reported. They are just grateful for God's mercy that they are alive and free," said Pradeep Kumar, a human rights lawyer who has represented police torture victims in Uttar Pradesh. "Torture sometimes leads to permanent disability, psychological trauma, loss of faculties." The
National Human Rights Commission, led by a retired Supreme Court
justice, has faced criticism that it is too dependent on the government
and lacks enforcement power. The commission has ordered that cameras be installed in police stations to monitor and deter police brutality. "In the past year we have spent about $600,000 to equip most of the police stations in New Delhi with a camera. This will make police functioning transparent and have a big impact on torture," said Maxwell Pereira, a senior police official in the capital. But critics and families of victims said they had not seen changes. In a much-publicized case in New Delhi last fall, five policemen were charged with beating and killing Sushil Kumar Nama at a police station. Nama had been detained on suspicion that he was working with neighborhood gamblers. Four of the police officers were arrested in April, but one remains at large, authorities said. Police officials denied that Nama was tortured, saying he died of a heart attack after he was released from custody. "My two children are so traumatized that now they run home scared every time they see a policeman on the street," said Nama's wife, Rekha, 29. "They know that danger lurks behind that uniform. They are not policemen, they are wolves."
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