MONTHLY FEATURE uuu POLICE AND SECURITY uuu NOVEMBER, 1993

Dr.S.Subramanian, IPS (Retd.)

Deaths in Police ‘lock-ups’ and in ‘encounters’ occur frequently and the fact that majority of the victims are from weaker sections of society and these deaths are the outcome of ‘third degree methods’ and flagrant violation of Human Rights of the citizens, are causing concern to all right thinking citizens of India. They not only sully the image of India as a liberal democracy but are also providing grist to anti-India propaganda by vested interests. Mere denunciation of Police will not make this evil disappear. We should calmly analyse the root causes and take appropriate remedial measures.

In India, every year, lakhs of people are taken into custody by the police and majority of them are suspected of having committed property crime. They are generally from poorer sections of society, illiterate, lack financial resources to afford legal aid and are unaware of their rights. Bulk of these arrests are made in the cities and towns where property crime occur in good numbers. To solve property crime, police resort to third degree due to : (a) Tacit approval of the society for the use of force against a suspect to detect the crime; (b) Psychological factors including fear psychosis in the minds of suspects and to exaggerated stories of police brutality; (c) Lack of adequate time and pressure to produce quick results which preclude the use of time consuming and painstaking modern methods of crime detection; and finally (d) legal impediments which deny police adequate time to interrogate the suspect.

Police are not psychopaths given to murdering people. What happens in the field is when police start applying third degree to the suspects, many of them die due to the fact that they are generally undernourished, of poor health with serious medical problems and the existence of fear psychosis generated due to the trauma of custody and stories of police brutality.

‘Encounters’ occur due to the legal problems faced by the police. Notwithstanding the presence of much publicised ‘Draconian Laws’ on the Statute book, it is a dismal fact that our Courts have not been able to deal with terrorists and their ilk severely. No sane citizen will place himself in jeopardy by giving evidence against terrorists in a Court of Law. They can not be saved by the police from reprisals. Police can not produce the intelligence at their disposal as evidence, as much of it will be hearsay and inadmissible in evidence. The pressure to put down political violence and terrorism by the State authorities and the public, drive the police to take recourse to ‘encounters’ to gain respite from the pressures of the State, public and the terrorists.

It is not our intention to justify or condone these deaths. Unless we know the realities on the ground and know why these occur, we can not possibly devise measures to prevent them.

In the first place, we have to ensure that all arrested persons are accounted for and given proper treatment. To do so, there is need to establish central reception facilities at towns and cities to handle all arrestees. All persons taken into custody in a city or town should be brought to a central reception facility, which should be under the direct charge of a senior gazetted police officer. All arrestees should be subjected to a thorough medical examination and record of the same should be kept. Further, every arrestee should be given a pamphlet in vernacular listing out his rights and his acknowledgement obtained. If the arrestee is an illiterate, the same should be read over to him and the official doing so should make a record to this effect. In case of the arrestees suffering from custodial shock, trauma and depression, the assistance of a psychiatrist should be made available. The arrestees should be held over in the central reception facility till produced in the court or when they are remanded to police custody by the courts.

Special investigation rooms with modern facilities should be available to enable the investigating officers to carry on further interrogation of the arrestees. All movements of the arrestees during their stay in the central reception facility should be recorded. Separate accommodation for women and juveniles should be provided and an adequate number of women police officers should be available to take charge of them. Consequent on the establishment of a central reception facility, there would be no need for lock-ups in police stations and the holding of prisoners in police stations should be prohibited.

A judicial magistrate should be available round the clock at a designated place in the city or town to attend to the judicial needs of the arrestees. he should be vested with all powers to grant bail, record confessions, issue judicial processes, etc. His presence and availability will automatically reduce the need for the police to hold the arrestees overnight or when the courts are closed.

With the enactment of a plethora of social, fiscal and other laws, the powers of the police to arrest have widened beyond imagination. This gives scope for misbehaviour and avoidable custody. A review of these powers of arrest is called for and suitable corrective steps are to be taken.

Law should be amended to make it mandatory to have a judicial enquiry by a First Class Judicial Magistrate into all deaths in police custody. The present practice of enquiries by Executive Magistrates have not yielded the desired results. Where it is proved that the death had in fact occurred in police custody, the presumption of guilt that the death was due to police violence should be invoked in the trial. Similar provisions exist in respect of custodial rape.

To look into and verify the complaints of custodial deaths, a police complaints board consisting of a retired district and sessions judge (chairman) and a retired police officer of the rank of Superintendent of Police and a prominent senior citizen with administrative background as members should be constituted. On receipt of complaints of custodial violence, the board should visit the scene and ascertain the facts. If, in its opinion, a prima facie case exists, a direction should be issued t the local chief of police to register a criminal case against the police personnel concerned and hand over the case to the Crime Branch, CID, for further investigation.

A sustained publicity campaign to educate the public and police about the sanctity of human rights should be undertaken. This should be a positive campaign and not a negative one to denigrate the police. Instead of concentrating on custodial violence only, this campaign should speak in terms of rights of women, children, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe and others and protection from unlawful custody and violence while under custody should be brought in as part of the general picture. This is to ensure that the police do not feel that they have been singled out for denigration in public. In all police publications, an advertisement regarding human rights should be carried. The electronic media should also be used extensively. Such a campaign is necessary as the police force, with a strength of about ten lakhs, is spread out, in small groups all over the country and it is not possible to reach them otherwise to sensitise them on this issue.

It is necessary to make a beginning to implement these suggestions in cities and towns. Except for legal provisions, all others could be ushered in through administrative orders. Custodial deaths can be prevented with the support of enlightened police leadership, a proactive judiciary, vigilant media and a socially conscious and well articulated public opinion. It should be borne in mind that what is called for is positive action and not a campaign to denounce police as an organisation.

[ Back ] [Top]