A Viral Photograph, A Ready Reckoner

Earlier this week, the photograph of a group of men went viral on social media. They had all been stripped down to their underwear and were standing against a wall, their hands clasped in front of them. The photograph was taken in the Kotwali Police Station in Madhya Pradesh’s Sidhi district.

Sidhi SP Mukesh Shrivastava later informed the press that Neeraj Kunder, a theatre artist, had been arrested on April 2, in connection with a case related to defamation of a BJP MLA and his family. The BJP MLA had filed a case at the Kotwali Police Station on March 16, following which the police sought details on the relevant posts from Facebook. Kunder was arrested after police found links to him during the course of the probe. Later, a group of around 40 men gheraoed the police station to oppose Kunder’s arrest and began raising slogans. It was then that they were held under preventive detention. Among the people who surrounded the police station were Kunder’s friends and relatives, and a YouTuber. It was in this context that they were arrested under preventive detention, the police said.

However, why they were stripped off their clothes and by whom is still under investigation.

This is one in a series of cases where excesses were committed by the police and despite uproar, no real, deterrent action was taken against the men in uniform. In this particular case, the police has come up with the bizarre theory that the clothes of the concerned people were removed to prevent them from committing suicide.

In another case of police brutality, mobile shop owner Bennix, 31, and his 60-year-old father Jeyaraj were taken to the Sathankulam police station in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district on June 19, 2020 over an argument that Jeyaraj had with a policeman. In a nightmarish scenario, the father-son duo was then beaten up mercilessly by scores of policemen who took turns at doing so; they succumbed a few days later to the grievous injuries thus suffered.

One of the most gruesome cases of police excesses (which came to light) in India was that of Soni Sori, a tribal activist in Chhattisgarh. During her detention, for being a Maoist supporter, she was made to sit naked in the lock-up and stones were inserted into her private parts. Admittedly, she thought “this was the end.”

Last month, Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai informed the Lok Sabha that disciplinary action was taken in just 21 cases of custodial deaths in the last five years. As per NHRC data shared by the Home Ministry, there were 1,840 cases of deaths in judicial custody across the country in 2020-21, 1,584 in 2019-20, 1,797 in 2018-19, 1,636 in 2017-18 and 1,616 in 2016-17. As per the NHRC data, the number of police custody death cases stood at 100 in 2020-21, 112 in 2019-20, 136 in 2018-19, 146 in 2017-18 and 145 in 2016-17, the minister said.

In March, the Lok Sabha was informed that over 2,150 deaths took place in judicial custody and 155 deaths were reported in police custody in 2021-22, according to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Rai informed Parliament that Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number of deaths — 448 — in judicial custody in 2021-22 till February, while Maharashtra reported the highest number of deaths — 29 — in police custody during the year.

“The NHRC announced a total compensation of Rs 4.53 crore in 2021-22 in 137 cases of custodial deaths, lower than the Rs 4.88 crore compensation awarded in 161 cases in 2020-21,” Rai said in reply to a written question. “There were 2,152 cases of deaths in judicial custody in 2021-22,” he said.

Since March-end 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown imposed across the country, one incident after another has been highlighted in the media in which policemen have been found exceeding their brief. Among these excesses were arrest, assault, verbal abuse, custodial deaths, confiscation of personal goods and papers and ready award of physical punishment.

The pertinent question is what makes such incidents not one-off cases but frequent recurrences. One reason often put forth is the ‘mentality’ of Indians, subjected to foreign rule for over 1000 years, a period which crushed their spirit and made them largely acquiescent. While being partly true, this does not explain the alarming regularity with which such incidents happen. Another explanation given casts our country’s judicial system in a less-than-flattering light, thus somehow explaining why ‘justice’ in most cases, is believed to be served at the ‘thana’ level, since the conventional route through chargesheets and courts takes generations to reach any sort of denouement. By that time, sometimes the accused die awaiting trial or the victim succumbs to natural causes and sheer hopelessness.

Not a question with an easy and convincing answer, the need of the hour is to prevent custodial excesses by police and accord a just and civilized trial in all civil and criminal cases. Only this will ensure that people’s faith in the institutions of democracy is reposed and the police are looked upon as the guardians they are meant to be and not as the abusers they often end up being seen by a large section of civil society.