Lying demmys quite on this one
Only blame America, correct folks?
Torture in India
Torture is routine in every one of India's 25 states. Every day
in
policecells and military barracks throughout the land pain and
indignity
aredeliberately inflicted by paid agents of the state. On men, women
and
evenchildren. They are beaten senseless, given electric shocks or have
their
limbscrushed by heavy rollers. Sexual torture, including rape, is
common.
AmnestyInternationalThe law prohibits torture, but there is credible
evidence that itis common throughout India. The authorities often use
torture duringinterrogations. In other cases, they torture detainees to
extort money andsometimes as summary punishment.
No country in the world permits torture as an acceptable form of
police ormilitary practice, however, many governments give tacit
approval to
the realityof torture by not ensuring that a suspect's rights are
sufficiently defended andperpetrators of the abuses are brought to
justice;
India is one such country.
To research the issue of torture in India is considerably
difficult.
TheIndian government has consistently prohibited independent human
rightsorganisations from investigating allegations of torture in the
country. Thesegrou ps include Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch-Asia, theInternational Red Cross, the British Parliamentary Human
Rights Group, and eventhe UN Human Rights Rapporteurs (India is obliged
to
permit access under theconditions of the International Covenant on
Civil and
Political Rights).
Because of this refusal the number of offences is difficult to
ascertain,however, reports by human rights and lawyers' organisations
inside
India,reports by India's National Human Rights Commission, the Indian
govern
ment,newspapers, periodicals and personal testimonies given to Khalsa
Human
Rightshave all been analysed to put together the following summary.
The Indian government has consistently refuted many of the
allegations
that itpermits torture, and it has, unconvincingly, stated that all
those
found to havepractised torture have been quickly and sufficiently
punished.
Needless to say,impartial investigations by reputable organisations
would be
in the government'sbest interest, thereby reducing the considerable
international concern over thelevel of violations.
Reasons for Torture -- to counter secessionist groups .
Since India' s Independence a number of political or religious
groups
havewanted specific states to break away from the federation, in a
number of
casesthe tactics used have been violent and of a terrorist nature. In
the
last tenyears independence mov ements have been formed in Assam, Jammu
&
Kashmir,Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Punjab. In each the state
authorities
or centralgovernment has responded with severe clamp-downs on civil
liberties, draftedEmergency Legislation which contravenes standards set
out
to safeguard the rightto arbitrary detention, arrest, and life, and
empowered security personnel, bothpolice and paramilitary units , to
freely
operate when undermining militantactivities.
In each of the above states allegations of torture are rife.
Whatfacilitates the possibility of torture is the sheer number of
interrogationcentres. In Kashmir every branch of the security forces
has its
own detentioncentres (numbering well into the twenties), and hundreds
of
temporary centresare set up when forces are mounting cordon and search
operations. In eachcentre the detainee has no access to the outside
world,
is not permitted visits by lawyers, magistrates or family members, and
is
held for anything between afew hours and several weeks (legislation
actually
permits detention withoutcharge or trial for a maximum of one year).
If a person is suspected of being a militant then he or she will
be
handedover to the CIA and taken to a Joint Detention Centre (JDC) where
the
person canbe held and interrogated for additional months. It is only
when
the personreaches the JDC that a FIR is made out and acknowledgement of
the
detention is official, before such time the individual is completely at
the
mercy of thepolice. This is assuming a FIR is even registered.
According to
Human RightsWatch-Asia, Lawyers in Kashmir told [us] that they have
filed
some 15,000 petitions since1990 calling on state authorities to reveal
the
whereabouts of detainees and thecharges against them.
-- to extract confessions
It is commonly recognised that the extraction of confessions,
orinformation which may ensure an arrest, is the most likely reason for
the
use oftorture. This is due to the fact that confessions, under ordinary
or
Emergencylegislation, are permitted i n a court of law. Another is that
an
arrestingofficer has to produce a suspect before a magistrate within 24
hours. This lawwas initiated to protect the rights of a citizen,
however,
because policepractice seems to be arrest first then gather evidence
the law
puts immensepressure on the arresting officer to secure a conviction in
very
little time; ifthe suspect confesses then there is less work for the
officer.
In the following interview J. Singh retold of his treatment after
he
waspicked up by police in 1992 because of his peaceful campaigning on
behalf
of aSikh political party: A few days later they arrested me again,
under
Piara Singh, SHO of Lambra. When taken to the police station I was
stripped
naked.They opened my legs very wide, as far as they could, and stood on
my
thighs andkicked me with their boots. I was nearly unconscious. They
beat me
with theirbelts 50-60 times.
At night they tied my legs together with some chains. They tied
my
hair to agirder on the ceiling. When I tried to sleep there was always
an
officer whowould wake me up. They kept my hands tied behind my back.
They
repeated thetreatment for a couple of days, mainly beating with the
belt.
The belt was 4-5inches wide. I still have marks on my ankles. They kept
me
for 3-4 days,although the police denied that they had arrested me.
However,
after pressurefrom people from my village and the Akali leader ,
Kuldeep
Singh Badala, theysaid they had arrested me, then I was released.
After that they raided my home, but because I was not there
theyarrested my younger brother and father. They were kept at the CIA
headquarters,Jullundhur, for about a month and a half...[To get them
released] I presentedmyself to the police, they took me in and beat me
like
before, ten times everyfive minutes, with the belt and widening my legs
as
before. They would beatsomeone one day for two hours and then the next
day
wou ld let them rest and thenext day beat them again. Often they would
kick
us and hit us. Once they hit mewith a stick in the penis which started
bleeding. They were asking me aboutJagvinder Singh and Avtar Singh
Mandair,
which organisations they were connectedwith, this was their main
question.
Then they brought two people to us. One of them was Avtar Singh
Mandair.They were beaten so badly we could hardly recognise them. They
were
asking meand Jagdish Singh [a fellow detainee], to recognise them and
the
other two torecognise us...One day they took me, Jagdish Singh and one
of
his relatives,they put us on a trolley, tied a bandage to our eyes, and
took
us outside, neara canal. They asked us about the whereabouts of Tarlok
Singh
Babber and KulbirSingh Barapind. They fired shots in the air to scare
us.
They said they wouldmake us an encounter (see p. 7), if we did not give
them
theinformation, and they put us under the water, keeping us underneath,
and
theyhit us with their rifle butts.
Proportionally, when a suspect is held for ordinary criminal
activity,
thevictims of torture are the unemployed, migrant workers or habitants
of
thenumerous urban slums. In most cases they are illiterate, have no
family
(exceptsimilarly destitute people), and little access to the
authorities who
may beable to help. Mostly, these violations go unnoticed,
occasionally,
however, whenthe incident is so horrific, the media and public are
attracted. For example, inJune 1990, in the state of Maharashtra, a
teenage
nomadic tribal boy was beatento death for protecting his pregnant
sister who
the police were trying to rape.
It started when police wanted to take Parvati Rusankote to the
Tulzapurstation, her brother Namdeo Atak insisted on accompanying her.
When
they beganto assault Parvati Rusankote, Namdeo tried to stop them, Some
of
the 7policemen tied Namdeo to a table and began whipping him with their
belts andhitting him with their lathis [bamboo sticks]. Meanwhile,
therest
caught hold of me. One of them gripped my hair and ripped apart my
blouse,while another disrobed me and stood on my thighs...They kept
abusing
me and alsokicked me on the stomach.
An examination of Namdeo Atak' s corpse found 40 external
injuries and
manybroken bones.
-- to coerce . In areas of political militancy it is not uncommon
for
men tolive apart from their families. This leaves, in some cases,
entire
householdscontaining only females. They become the inevitable targets
to
appease the senseof frustration the security forces feel at not being
able
to capture suspects.Often a simple threat to the household morally
blackmails the man to returnhome; the threat is made to his honour of
not
being able to protect his family.In more serious cases abduction,
torture,
including rap e, and sometimes deathare the result of police coercion.
The relevancy of rape and threats of a sexual nature in this form
ofcounter-insurgency has been made by Human Rights Watch-Asia: In the
past,
rapehas often been accepted as spoils of war or mischaracterised as
incidental tothe conflict or as a privately-motivated form of sexual
abuse
rather than anabuse of power that implicates public responsibility.
Reports
of the widespreaduse of rape as a tactic of war in the former
Yugoslavia
have been ins trumentalin focusing attention on the function of rape in
war
and have provokedinternational condemnation.
One such case was that which occurred on 1 October, 1992, when a
BSF
patrolreturning from a crackdown in the village of Bakhikar, in Jammu &
Kashmir,had one of its members killed in an attack. It is reported that
following theattack BSF forces rampaged through the nearby village of
Batekote, killing tenpeople and burning houses and grain
stores.\rdblquote
They then went onto thevillage of Gurihakhar were it is alleged they
raped
at least 4 women, [We]also interviewed the mother of a 13 year-old girl
in
the same town who providedan account of rape as if she, and not her
daughter
were raped, apparently toprotect her daughter from public humiliation .
As a
rape victim, the daughtermay be socially ostracised and unable even to
marry.
-- as punishment
. In a country where the courts are overwhelmed with criminal
cases it
isnot uncommon for the police to play the roles of judge and juror.
(The
problem of the backlog of cases was clarified in statistics released by
the
Ministry ofLaw & Justice. In March, 1994, 38,728 cases were pending
with the
SupremeCourt alone, and 270,000 in the various High Courts throughout
the
country, withan additional 2.7 m illion cases in the subordinate
courts.)
One case was that of a man called Jugataram. It is reported that
he
wasarrested by the Barmer police of Rajasthan on the charge of
abducting
hisemployer's daughter in February, 1994. When Jugataram refused to adm
it
to thekidnapping the Assistant SP, Sumerdan, and a constable, Kishore
Singh,
in thepresence of the SHO, Sohan Singh, cut of Jugataram' s penis. In
an
effort tocover up the crime the officers then registered a case of
attempted
suicideagainst Jugataram. Following an investigation by the state
authorities and theRajasthan High Court, the officers had criminal
cases
issued against them andJugataram was awarded compensation of Rs. 10,000
In a well-publicised case the Punjab & Haryana High Court ordered
thestate authorities to pay compensation to four women who, after being
foundguilty of pick-pocketing, had the words thief tattooed on
theirforeheads by police.
Again in areas where the security forces are countering militant
activitiesthere have been allegations of arbitrary reprisals against
the
civilianpopulation because of militant successes. Masroof Sultan, a 19
year-old collegestudent from Batamaloo in Kashmir, was travelling on a
bus
when it was stoppedand searche d by members of the BSF. He alleges that
he
was picked on and beatenby four of the soldiers. He was then
blindfolded
and, along with three otheryoung men, taken to a safe house where he
was
forced to admit hewas a militant. When he denied the allegation he was
stripped, his hands andknees where tied together, he was hung from a
pole
and beaten until his leg wasbroken.
Orders were then given to take Masroof Sultan to a detention
centre
calledPapa II, a centre near Srinagar where allegations of tort ure are
oftenreported. In Papa II, metal rings and wires were attached to his
body
and he wasgiven electric shocks ten or twelve times, on his toes, his
right
arm, legs andother sensitive parts of his body, until he started
bleeding
from the nose and lost consciousness. He was told by one member of the
security personnel:
Last night in Batamaloo four of our persons were killed. We know
thatyou are innocent, but we have to kill you [because] our four
persons
have beenkilled.
He was then taken out to a secluded area about an hours drive
from
thedetention centre. He was dragged out of the jeep, stood against a
tree,
andshot. They shot my legs first...I fell down. After ten minutes,they
came
back and found him still alive. An officer told one of th e BSF men
toshoot
him in the heart, but the shot, hitting him in the chest, again was
notfatal. Masroof Sultan says he was then shot a third time and hit in
the
neck andsurvived by pretending to be dead. He believes that the three
others
were killednear the same spot, but their bodies have not been found. A
doctor's reportconfirmed the allegations of Masroof Sultan being shot.
It
also recorded thathis body had been considerably violated.
--to intimidate
This is one of the measures taken by the security forces (often
with
theknowledge, and sometimes with the sanction of the state authorities)
to
counterany public support for secessionist groups. Usually security
forces
targetspecific propaganda campai gns to a beleaguered local population
(militantgroups impose similar pressures), but, sometimes the
propagandais
more physical and direct. This is in the form of crackdowns .Under the
guise
of tracking down militants the security forces pick up membersfrom the
local
population, torture them, and then leave their bodies by theroadside as
examples.
Muzaffar Ahmed Mirza, 35, is an Arabic teacher in Kashmir. He was
arrestedon 4 October, 1991, following a crackdown by police on Tral, a
village 4 kmsouth of Srinagar. He was beaten and given electric shock
treatment to hisgenitals. Following this, an iron rod was inserted into
his
rectum and pushedthrough to his chest. When found he was in extreme
pain and
had to be givenemergency surgery because he was coughing up blood and
had
signs of pe ritonitis(inflammation of abdominal cavity). X-rays of his
chest
showed he had a rupturedlung, thus supporting the above allegation, and
the
next day underwent chestsurgery which revealed a large laceration of
the
diaphragm and left lung.However, afte r two weeks Muzaffar Ahmed Mirza
died
of internal infection.
Methods of Torture -dislocation of bones.
Commonly reported in Assam, Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab
(particularly
inareas where the Punjab police or Punjab paramilitary units are
operating).
Herethe victim is held down and the legs opened as far as possible,
displacing theballs of the joints. A lthough they are put back, as with
any
dislocated bone,they will never function properly again, and reports of
victims not being towalk without pain for many years are not uncommon.
the aeroplane. Here the victim's hands are tied behind the
back,and
then the rope is thrown over a beam. Officers then pull on this to
raise
theperson off the ground, almost immediately dislocating the shoulders.
Whilst inthis position the person is spun around and hit with
lathis[bamboo
sticks] or rifle butts, or punched and kicked. Some victims have
allegedthey
were in this position for over an hour.
--electric shocks. This is a very common form of torture.
Sometimes
cattleprods are used (one has only to think of the toughness of a cow
hind
whencompared to human flesh to understand how painful this can be), but
mostly it isa crude form of electrical device in which the touching
bare
wires cause theshock. Fingertips, nipples, tongue, genitals and inside
the
***** or vagina arethe areas mostly abused.
-- roller treatment. This has been most commonly reported in the
states ofAssam, Jammu & Kashmir, and Punjab. The victim is held down on
the
floor (inthe case of Sikhs, who do not cut their hair, he or she is
forced
to sit uprightand one officer pulls on the unravelled length of hair
whilst
pressing a kneeinto the back), and a large wooden log is laid across
the
legs. Two officersstand or sit on the log, roll ing it backwards and
forwards, thereby crushingthe muscles.
-- rape and sexual abuse. As illustrated above, rape and sexual
abuse
hasbeen used in the fight against militancy, however, both men and
women can
facesexual assault in ordinary criminal cases. The PUDR reported
24cases of
custodial rape between 1989-93.
The PUDR noted that there have been no convictions and that the
authoritiesreinstated 3 of 10 policemen dismissed in connection with
these
cases.
In another incident, on 1 September, 1994, a peaceful procession,
estimatedat 12,000 people (men, women and children) of pro- Uttarakhand
activists wasattacked by police. There have been mixed reports on the
reasons for the attack.What is certain is that during the clashes a
number
of women were arbitrarilydragged away from the crowds, robbed, beaten
and
then raped by officers who sawan opportunity whilst order was
temporarily
broken. A report by the PUCL givesdetails, from eyewitness accounts, of
how
the police fired indiscriminately intothe crowd from rooftops, burnt
shops
and businesses, attacked and beat anyone intheir way, and how a
complete
busload of women were taken away under policeescort.
r An interview with one woman, who eventually returned after her
abduction bypolice, said ...the jawans [armed police officers] and
policemen
hadstripped them of their jewellery and cash, had beaten them up
severely
and thatmany of my friends were missing or had been raped.
The exact figure of people killed and women abducted and raped is
unlikelyto be ever known as magisterial and political interference led
to a
cover-upimmediately after the event (state employees cleaned away marks
early the nextmorning and allegedly d octored medical reports reduced
the
number of dead andinjured taken into local hospitals). However, at the
time
of writing, a CBIinvestigation has indicted the police with causing the
deaths of four people.
-- water immersion.
This is where the victim is forcibly held under water (or there
faces
areheld in a bucket of water) for periods long enough to cause
unconsciousness.
- beatings.
Punching and kicking by a prison guard or police officer is such
a
commonoccurrence that one victim interviewed did not consider this
treatment
torture.Physical abuse of suspects or convicted criminals almost
appears to
be part ofthe person's punishment. The most commonly reported abuses
are
beatings on thesoles of the feet. An extreme case of brutality towards
detainees was in theriot on prisoners perpetrated by guards at Pi
libhit
jail on 8 November, 1993.In total 7 people were killed and 27 injured.
-- depravation of food, water, and sleep
. One victim interviewed, see J. Singh above, spoke of a
particular
officerwhose sole duty was to keep him awake.
-- incommunicado detention. This is detention without access to
the
outsideworld. In secessionist areas Emergency legislation has been
drafted
to givepolice sweeping powers of detention. (In Punjab security
personnel
are actuallyfree from prosecution even if guilty of human rights
abuses.)
For instanceindividuals can be held for a year without any charge or
trial;
some Articlespresume guilt with the suspect having to prove his or her
innocence; the reasonfor detention can be withheld from the detainee;
the
identity of witne sses canbe kept secret; bail is unlikely; and, during
detention, access to a lawyer,doctor or magistrate is forbidden and
even
family visits are considered a luxury (in other words if the family can
bribe the SHO).
-- Torture Leading to Death
The gravest concern for all victims of torture is that the
officerssupervising the interrogation let their juniors go too far,
this
results in acustodial death. The prevalence of torture by police in
lockups
throughoutIndia is borne out by the number of cases of deaths in police
custody.
According to Amnesty International, between 1985-93 there were
484custodial deaths in India. This, however, is likely to be a
conservative
figureas Amnesty derived its information from deaths which had been
publicised. In amore recent report, the organisation recorded in one
state
alone, Jammu &Kashmir, 715 deaths in a four-year period. In both cases
the
numbers of officerssuspended or convicted of murder was negligible, 6
in the
former and none in thelatter.
One example of custodial death is that of Bibi Resham Kaur. She
wasdetained on 22 October, 1993, by district SP Manmohan Singh of
Khanna
Police,Punjab. The reason for her detention was to discover the
whereabouts
of BhaiJagjit Singh, her husband, and a sus pected militant. It is
reported
that as shewas unwilling, or perhaps unable, to disclose any
information,
her 8 month-oldson, Simranjit Singh, was held down on a block of ice,
in the
hope of forcinghis mother to talk. On the 23 October, 1993, the polic e
announced that BibiResham Kaur died in custody, adding that she died at
her
own hands. So far therehas been no notification that the body of Bibi
Resham
Kaur received anindependent or police post mortem
When it was announced that she had died, the police contacted the
villagesarpanch (elected village official) and Bibi\rquote s sister,
Bhasi
Kaur, tosimply perform the funeral rites. The suggestion that she took
her
own life isone of the three improbable excuses the police give to
cover-up
custodial death.The second is the person was shot whilst trying to
escape.
The third is that theperson died in anencounter The police
interpretation of
an encounter is where a person is killed during a clash between
securitypersonnel and armed militant groups . The common scenario is
when
members ofthe security forces are allegedly ambushed and during the
crossfire thesuspect-in-transit is killed. It is worth noting that in
encounters reported by the Indian media, rarely are members of the
security
forceskilled or even injured. Amnesty International has recorded that
in
1990 alone encounters were responsible for the death 346 Sikhs and 25
police
officers.
Lack of Effective Response
Although the Indian government consistently claims to take
effectivemeasures against the crimes perpetrated by its officers, there
is
very littleevidence to suggest this. At every opportunity the
government,
and itsrepresentatives abroad, have dismisse d allegations as
mis-leading
,exaggerated, or simply lies. It rarely gives any evidence to support
theseclaims, possibly relying on the fact that as a government its word
could orshould not be false.
A major cause of the persistence of widespread torture in India
is
thefailure or unwillingness of leading government officials and
representatives toacknowledge that torture even exits, let alone that
it
needs to be vigorouslytackled. The government maintains this position
despite the fact that judges,journalists, expert commentators, police
officers themselves, and officialcommissions have attested to its
widespread
occurrence.
--
"You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people
of
color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here."
Howard Dean
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