Note

Culture of Torture
G Vishnu

Does Indian law allow torture? Actually, No. Activist Arun Ferreira, who spent four years in Nagpur prison until January 2012 and was charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), witnessed many fellow inmates suffer torture. "Even solitary confinement is illegal but even prison in India has cells for solitary confinement," he says. "The State uses torture as a weapon. It is systemic for a reason." He points to hypocrisy of the State in an anti-torture Bill that the government rushed through Lok Sabha in 2008 and that, activists found, actually expected torture in some cases.

"At the 2008 UN Human Rights Convention, many countries asked India why it still hadn't ratified the convention on prevention of torture. Then India had said it would legislate a domestic law. Five years later, there's no law". That was Vrinda Grover Human Rights Lawyer.

"Doctors ought to provide relief and recourse but medical services available to prisoners are inadequate. The medical staff treats them with disdain. By and large, doctors reinforce the messages imposed by jail authorities". Thus observed Binayak Sen, Pediatrician and Public Health Specialist.

"Torture needs to be defined under the IPC. An amendment is pending in Parliament and that needs to be enacted. There is a proper definition of torture that is universally accepted, and it should be brought in as an offence", said Teesta Setalvad, Civil rights activist

"The worst thing is that courts don't take notice of complaints. When undertrials are presented before them, they invariably complain about custodial torture. Courts brush aside these claims. They don't pay any heed to such grievances'. It came from SR Darapuri, former IG, Uttar Pradesh.

'Every morning And evening, We were hung upside down and our feet, Ankles and back caned. The torture continued for four days'. So said Shatrugan Rajnaitham, a tribal from Gadchiroli, who was charged with waging war against the State.

Policemen long enjoyed impunity from prosecution because the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), a set of rules coded in 1973 to administer criminal jurisprudence, stipulates that officials cannot be prosecuted for acts committed in the discharge of their duties. The Indian Penal Code of 1860 had allowed sentences of up to seven years for a range of acts that can be considered as torture. But to prosecute cops under these laws has traditionally been next to impossible. Few victims are forensically examined. A lack of a witness protection mechanism deters the victims from taking on the guilty. Compensation is yet not a fundamental right. The courts have taken a minimalistic view on claims for compensation from acts of torture. As such, awards vary across India.

In 2005, an amendment to the CrPC mandated a judicial probe on the death or disappearance of a person or rape of a woman in custody. But it has hardly lessened the use of torture. Deaths from torture are almost always passed off as suicides. "What led them to the extreme act and how they commit suicide with strange objects like shoe laces, blankets, jeans, etc are (questions) never answered," says a report by Asian Centre for Human Rights, an NGO that activist Chakma heads. "How the victims had access to the means like poisons, drugs, electric cables, etc in custody remain(s) unknown." Many victims, who are healthy prior to their arrest, develop medical complications once in custody. "They are subjected to torture and murdered. With the acquiescence of the medical fraternity, the police are able to describe the death as medical complications."

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 50, June 23 -29, 2013

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