INDIA:AN AVERAGE of four people a day have died in official custody across India over the past five years, many of them brutally tortured, a human rights group report has revealed.
Citing data provided by the federal National Human Rights Commission, the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) maintained that 7,468 people had died or been killed in prison and police custody since 2002.
Releasing its report to coincide with International Day against Torture and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the independent human rights group quoted instances of torture and custodial deaths in areas where there were no armed conflicts or insurgencies. It said this highlighted the "institutionalised" use of force by India's security forces.
"India is in a worrying state of denial about torture," ACHR head Suhas Chakma said, adding that only four police personnel had been convicted in 2004 and three in 2005 for custodial deaths.
"It takes about 25-30 years [in India] to prosecute somebody. And by that time many of the accused are dead, or possibly the relatives that have filed a complaint too were dead," Chakma stated. "So there is a culture of impunity which is given by the government of India, and I think this is the single most important factor which is encouraging torture."
India's torturously slow judicial system has more than 30 million criminal and civil cases pending in various courts, the majority of them decades old.
The report also cited instances of torture by the army and federal paramilitary forces in insurgency-hit northern Jammu and Kashmir State and the militancy-ridden northeastern provinces.
"The armed forces are the sacred cows in the country. The National Human Rights Commission has the mandate to intervene in matters of torture by police but it cannot look into the matter involving the armed forces," Chakma said.
Citing "non-co-operation" on the part of the Indian government to prevent or stem torture, the ACHR has recommended it enact legislation putting the onus of proving innocence on the state in all cases of torture and financially compensate the victims.
The ACHR also suggested recognising torture as a crime distinct from custodial death and establishing a separate department to swiftly prosecute the guilty should investigations establish torture.
India's many insurgent groups, including the Maoists and others in northeastern Manipur state, were also criticised by the ACHR for their "appalling" record of killing, torturing and mutilating their victims.