Police brutality: No functioning redressal system

Kumaresan was wheeled into Government Medical College in south Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli on June 13, three days after he vomited blood. His family was clueless about the cause, but doctors attending him saw injury marks on his body. The youth was scared and unwilling to talk about it. When the doctors persisted, the 25-year-old broke down to narrate how a Sub-Inspector had stamped on his chest and private parts a month ago, after summoning him to the police station in Tenkasi in a land dispute case.

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He was threatened that he would be booked under the contentious Goonda Act and chose to keep mum. Two weeks later, on June 27, Kumaresan breathed his last. "I will not get back my son for sure, but I want justice," says his father Navaneethakrishnan, who has now knocked the doors of Madras High Court.

Mahendran was picked up by Sathankulam police in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi on May 23 for questioning in a murder case and was set free a day later. But he died at the government hospital in Thoothukudi on June 3 with his mother Vadivu claiming that he was beaten black and blue by the police. “If the police had not taken my son that day, he would have been alive today. The police killed my son,” the grief-stricken mother, who has also approached the Madras High Court, says.

The back-to-back incidents did not hit headlines immediately as the families were scared to talk about it. But an outcry following the deaths of Bennix and his father Jeyaraj on June 22 and 23 respectively, after being tortured in custody, gave them a voice to speak up. Bennix and Jeyaraj were arrested by Sathankulam police on June 19 on charges of violating the lockdown norms.

Four deaths in police custody in a span of 20 days in Tamil Nadu amplifies the horrid tales of police excesses across the country. Look at the case of dreaded gangster Vikas Dubey, who was killed in an encounter near Kanpur on July 10, a day after he was arrested from Madhya Pradesh. On the day he was arrested, social media posts had wondered whether he would “escape from custody and get killed in an encounter.” And, exactly that happened as per the police version, which does not cut much ice with the public. Dubey’s case was the latest among the rising encounter killings — 119 — by police after Yogi Adityanath government assumed power in 2017.

It was the same case with the youths arrested in Hyderabad for the rape and murder of a young woman. Police took them to the crime scene, where the accused were killed. In both cases, the police version was the same — the accused attacked the police and tried to escape.

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This is not just happening in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh or Telangana; police across the country seem to enjoy patronage from politicians in power, in return for their loyalty. Using police and then giving cover to the force is a trend that is common to politicians across the spectrum.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) acknowledge what is wrong with the police. The NHRC said in its annual report for 2017-18, the latest available in the public domain, "custodial violence and torture is so rampant in India that it has almost become a routine. It represents the worst form of excesses by public servants entrusted with the duty of law enforcement."

Reforms overdue

The MHA goes on to strike at the root of the issue, saying that police reforms have been on the agenda of governments almost since independence “but even after more than 50 years, the police is seen as selectively efficient, unsympathetic to the underprivileged” and it is “further accused” of politicisation and criminalisation.

“The policing system needs to be reformed to be in tune with the present-day scenario and upgraded to effectively deal with the crime and criminals, uphold human rights and safeguard the legitimate interests of one and all,” it says in the ‘Status Note on Police Reforms in India’.

Despite the MHA's statements, there appears to be a persistent lack of political will to tackle the menace. Take the case of Prempal Singh, who spent 2,349 days in jail and fought 27 years for justice, before he was exonerated of all charges. He was slapped with 20 cases, including one for the rape of a young girl, whom he had actually saved from sexual predators in June 1991. All this took place just because he took on the police and got a Sub-Inspector suspended in a case. Finally, he did receive compensation and an apology letter from the then Delhi Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal, after an order by the Delhi High Court.

“Police would not dare to slip into unlawful activities if an effective remedy is assured for victims. At the same time, we cannot put the blame entirely on the police. What are their working conditions? Do they get time for themselves? Policemen are treated like slaves by their superiors and political masters. A frustrated lot, they take it on the vulnerable,” lawyer Wills Mathew, who fought Singh’s case, told DH.

While the common people face death and torture at the hands of police, when it comes to punishing the wrongdoers in khaki, the numbers are not encouraging. The NHRC data for 2019-20 shows that the rights body received intimation about 114 deaths in police custody and 1,702 deaths in judicial custody.

The National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) ‘Crime in India 2018’ report shows that there were 70 deaths in police and judicial custody in 2018, with Gujarat leading with 14 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu (12) and Andhra Pradesh (11). Of this, police registered cases only in 36 incidents, in which 23 policemen were arrested. Only five charge-sheets were filed and none were convicted in 2018.

Of the 70 deaths, 32 were reported due to illness while 17 died by suicide. Only three persons were reported to have died due to injuries suffered while in custody and seven died while trying to escape.

No conviction

What happens to cases against policemen makes for interesting reading. At least 5,479 cases were registered against policemen in 2018 but only 580 were arrested and 918 charge-sheeted. Trials were completed in 586 cases, of which conviction came in just 41 cases. Separately, in 89 cases of human rights violation by policemen, only 40 personnel were arrested but the police failed to get a single conviction in 2018.

Also Read | Torture is a common tool Karnataka police wields

When asked about the reasons for the police sliding into lawlessness, former police officials and activists point to their working condition, political interference, inadequate training, refusal to change from the colonial mindset and a conservative approach. The ‘Status of Policing in India Report 2019: Police Adequacy and Working Conditions’ report by Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and ‘Common Cause’ also lays bare the prejudices of Indian policemen.

One in every two policemen believes that Muslims are “very much” or “somewhat” prone to committing crimes and that police complaints of atrocities against Scheduled Caste and Tribes are “false and motivated” while one-third also believe that people from Schedule Caste (35%), OBCs (33%), upper-caste (33%) and tribals (31%) are prone to committing crimes. Underlining the impact of such beliefs, the report had said, “such opinions by people in a position of power placed within the criminal justice system are bound to have an impact on the manner in which the provisions of such law are implemented.”

When one speaks about police excesses, the recurring response one receives is about the failure in implementing the directives on police reforms laid out by the Supreme Court in 2006, which included selection procedure and fixed tenure of Director General of Police, establishing State Security Commissions and an ombudsman in Police Complaints Authority and providing fixed tenure for officers in operational positions among others.

A NITI Aayog study in 2016 said that the status of implementation of the SC directions presented a dismal picture saying, “In what is considered to be bypassing court directions, 17 states...passed new laws legitimising status quo while other states passed merely executive orders.”

Activists complain that the Complaint Authorities are rendered toothless, as states protect erring policemen in most cases.

Former Supreme Court judge Justice KT Thomas, who was appointed by the Supreme Court in 2008 to monitor the implementation of the 2006 order, said almost all states were opposed to doing away with their powers to transfer police officers. “Policing being a state subject, it was for each state to take sincere efforts to frame their Police Acts by including the SC directives. But the political leadership would always prefer to have their control on policing and hence they were not favouring doing away with powers on police transfers,” he told DH.

The challenge before the governments across the country will be to make police more humane and bring about a change in their approach. Assigning policewomen at front desks to receive complaints, as done in some places, alone would not help to change the image. One of the foremost challenges before police will be to change its image as well as attitude towards common people. Otherwise, more and more George Floyds will keep emerging from the nooks and corners of the country, saying “I can’t breathe.”

(With inputs from ETB Sivapriyan, Arjun Raghunath, Mrityunjay Bose and Sanjay Pandey)