Custodial Deaths In India

Custodial Deaths in India is an issue that is hardly ever brought to the fore and discussed, even when thousands of these incidents take place every year.

Custodial Deaths are deaths of the accused in police custody and they are often neglected in our country. Independent surveys show that custodial death rates are higher in the northern states. These surveys also show an alarming rate of five custodial deaths per day in the whole country.

The main law enforcement agency officers- the Indian Policemen seem to forget that even though they are the in-charge of maintaining law and order in the country, they are themselves bound by the law.

Electrocution to thrashing, the police mercilessly uses any torture method on the accused, without, even once, thinking of the consequences of their actions. Most of the accused who are tortured this way are the ones who can't buy their way out of the arrest, in other words, common people, like you and me, who aren't really close to any politicians, any policemen, or any other VIPs.

And those who die as a result of this cruelty, are set aside as either suicide cases or deaths due to medical illnesses.

There are hardly any norms in place to check custodial deaths in India and proving these deaths is an even more daunting task due to various reasons. The first is the fact that any police officers appointed to look into a custodial death case will not take any strict action against their own colleagues. The next is, that there is hardly any evidence of torture with the deceased's family. It gets even more difficult to prove a death, because most who die in merciless hands of the police, have little or no connection with babus, honchos, or sahabs. Any accused with connections isn't touched because a single phone call could make the police officer's life more problematic than ever.

Recently, a youngster named Jaspal Singh was arrested from Faridkot by the CIA branch of the police. He died in the custody a few days later and his case was set aside as suicide. His family's repeated pleas for further investigation were ignored. His death only came to light once the cop who arrested him also committed suicide. The cop who had arrested him, had also disposed Jaspal's body. Only when thousands of people started protesting outside the police offices, was a special investigation team formed to probe the death.

The constitution of India grants all Indians, whether accused in a criminal case or not, some Fundamental Rights, which are plainly ignored as soon as any accused's remand begins. Even we, the average Indians, have never considered the Fundamental Rights of those who have been arrested. It’s time we should!