International Day in Support of Victims of Torture:26 JUNE
Published at Rising Kashmir
Ravi Nitesh
Torture is the process through which any official from the government perform inhumane treatment with a person to extract some information from him about any crime. Here inhumane treatment may include anything that is not acceptable to any human and that violate his rights and dignity. Now, if we see the scenario, we will find that this practice in almost all parts of the world. We have already seen the scenes of dictators ruling countries, authoritarian countries and even in democratic states.
The global community believes that everyone should enjoy equal rights of human dignity. But in spite of its larger reach, police and security agencies continuously commit the practice of torture. Situation becomes so painful when even a group of citizens, favors such torture practices.
India, where people hesitate to report instances of torture due to unawareness, has high numbers of custodial deaths and torture. There are various reasons behind this high number of torture and that includes unawareness of public about their rights, division of society on the basis of caste and religion, high economical inequality and improper control/vigil over police and security forces with respect to the usage of force.
Many times torture starts with illegal arrests. These arrests happen whenever policemen arrests someone without giving him reason and they also didn’t give any official information about this arrest. Therefore, to stop the torture, remedies also include prevention of illegal arrest. There are some myths and illusions about illegal arrests. Here, in India, many such arrests have been reported. In view of this, there are various guidelines that have been issued by Supreme Court of India to protect these malpractices. These guidelines provide some rights to person who is subjected to arrest. These rights include that any such person have right to talk with a friend/ family member or relative to inform about his arrest. Guidelines also include that the police personal who is in charge will let him aware about his rights, police personal will make entry in register about the arrest and he/she is bound to produce the accused within 24 hours before a magistrate. It also give him right to bail and right to speedy trail including right to have a legal aid through an advocate of his choice.
History of torture was always there since the existence of societies and rulers, however, in present scenario, when we are saying that we have become more civilized and developed, we should not forget the aspect of humanity which is more or less vanishing. There are people in lock ups who receive punches by policemen and still their arrest is unknown to the outer world. This condition becomes more severe when army makes arrests. Moreover, government itself provided some tough laws include AFSPA, PSA etc. These acts were provided to prevent insurgency by giving additional power to security personals while the government itself became careless to impose control over misuse of these powers by them. It is reported that many fake killings, illegal arrests and encounters have been made by security personals with the back up of these laws. Killing of young students and youth of Kashmir cannot be forgotten. On the same way, many voices have been suppressed and many innocents faced torture in NE states too. Story of Soni Sori of Chhateesgarh is well known to us.
There are many individuals and organizations who are working towards protection of victims and prevention of this unlawful practice by police and other security personals. In addition to already provided guideline under IPC, Article 330 and 331, where it was provisioned to provide seven years of imprisonment to any police personal who will be found guilty of torture due to which an accused get hurt severely. It is clear that even if, in spite of such provisions, these incidents are continuously increasing, it simply means that there is something we lack. Hence, there must be a review on these already provided articles. If we observe keenly we find that a common man never bothers about such incidents until he himself face it. The same in larger scenario, states who are unaffected with AFSPA or PSA do not have any inclination towards such issues.
First strategy should be towards pressurizing government on this issue and also providing suggestions and solutions. In addition to this, awareness campaign must be launched. Ground work should be done in areas to make people aware about their rights. One more thing that has to be kept in mind that no one should involve in such sensitive issue without knowledge of the issue and its probable outcome. Organizations should keep it in mind that it must have a goal to fight against such issues with its grounded works in society. Awareness is the best way than to show grievance.
Government should also give instructions to security personals in a tougher way. There should be a guideline through which every officer in charge, who makes an arrest, must inform police control room about the name of person, time of arrest and reasons. This information must be provided within half an hour of arrest and may be send through phone call or sms and the report should be noted at control room. This control room will be able to provide any detail in case it needs. Public should also be aware about the central control room and its data should be available online. All such district control rooms should be joined with each other through online connections and dedicated servers from where the real time information can be obtained. Apart from the other technical modifications and innovations, police personals should also get trained about soft skills and human rights trainings. People vigilance committees should be formed by the government and retired police officers, judges and social activists can be included in such voluntary committees with their powers to visit jails, lock ups and police stations and provide their reports/suggestions/recommendations accordingly.
Torture must be stopped with immediate effect and heavy penalties should also be imposed on security personals for this inhumane treatment. Victims (and their families) of torture requires assistance and care and thus government must have compensation for such victims. Laws like AFSPA & PSA must be reviewed every year and arrangements should be such that this review becomes fruitful in repealing the laws. Giving hype to such issues cannot provide any relief to victims, future victims and their families; instead it will only complicate the issue.
The author can be mailed at ravinitesh@gmail.com
