Brutality and Use of force by Police
Author : Garima Sethi
Introduction
India reported more than 1700 custodial deaths in the year 2019. Police brutality and violence is very much prevalent in our nation. Not only in this pandemic but post this situation of pandemic also, brutality is very much seen in our society. A policeman is the most visible person of the government, in cases of crises or danger when a person does not know what to do and whom to approach the policeman and police station happens to be the most approachable and appropriate unit and person for him, but imagine that you approach a policeman and he instead of saving you from danger beat you up and puts you in danger. Isn’t it is astonishing and surprising ? This was just a situation think of it happening in reality, it happens. Custodial deaths are those deaths which happen to occur when a person is accused or is undertrial of any offence which is committed. There are two types of people in society-
- People who think that it is necessary to use force to bring out the actual truth.
- People who think violence is not only the way to reach the truth.
People of the first kind are unaware of one fact, that the innocent person who has wrongfully been accused of any offence are put to death by the way of interrogation. Now, what one must be should aware of is that there are many instances which have taken place in real world, one of them is a case which is very famous,i.e. SAHELI VS. COMMISSIONER OF DELHI POLICE where police officer had beaten up a 9 years boy to death. In this case the Supreme court had held that the state was liable to pay a compensation of 75000/- to his mother.
Let us now in this module learn more about the brutality and use of force by police .
Understanding the Text
It is a human nature that if someone has been given some powers, that person automatically after some time over uses that power or arbitrarily uses those powers. Similarly the police is also given certain powers under the law, these powers are as follows:
- Section 46of Code of Criminal Procedure authorises a police officer to use “allmeans necessary” to effect an arrest when either the person forcibly resists arrest or attempts to evade arrest. If the person is accused of an offence punishable with death or life imprisonment.
- Section 129of code of criminal procedure concerns the “maintenance of publicorder and tranquillity”, allows the dispersal of an assembly by force but does not address the force that may and may not be used to achieve this.
ANTI-TORTURE BILL 2010
In order to curb down the torture by the police officials there was a bill presented in parliament ” Prevention of torture bill 2010″ this bill states that if any public servant commit any torture againt any person he will be punished for an imprisonment of a term of 10 years . The term torture is defined in this bill as ” any public servant in term of deriving any information from an individual or any third person greviously hurt any person in such a way that his life, limb or health, mentally or physically torture him then all these above-mentioned situations will be considered as torture . But this bill was never passed, although this was presented numerous times in rajya sabha but this bill has never been passed.
RECENT SCENARIO
Everyone must be aware of use of force of police officers during the lockdown period. Many cases and even videos all over the media platforms were viral of police officers using lathi charge and many more means of technics on people. People were brutality beaten up by police officers. Police officers had a very important role in enforcing the laws made by government during the lockdown, it may have used some other way around to implement those guidelines given by the government, but beating people was not the right choice to do so. It is very much admissible that the cases of covid were rising but in order to regulate the behaviour of the public only force is not the way to make it happen. In most of the cases were a person is wrongfully detained or has been brutality beaten up by police officers there is an intervention of the NHRC (national human rights commission) which is resolution of all the problems when an individual’s rights are
harmed. Now the invention of NHRC plays an important role in these cases as after the intervention of this body only one may able to seek justice and the matter will be reported to Supreme court because this body is working only for an individual’s rights. Many cases are seen and are decided by Supreme court of India but others have not even in news or media these are not seen anywhere because these cases are either shut with money or threats by police officers. One must have listen to a line which is very famous ” police ka raaj matlab Gunda raaj”, the police officers are termed as Goons because they do what they think is right.
CONCLUSION
The police not only in our country but outside in world is considered to serve for public, but it is very difficult when this police is the one who become dangerous for them. It is very true that rise of brutality is very much accepted and encouraged by the people only. One must wonder how that’s possible, it is , the people only enjoy movies based on police officers beating up people and becoming hero’s after finishing the villain in movies. This is a small thought, but also one of the reasons for promoting the idea of brutality and using force must have derived from this, or if not derived but is for sure encouraged from this idea only. Never think that this is a problem which can on its own disappear from the society, instead of that if it wi be neglected by all of us then one day it’ll reach to a point from where it will be very difficult to return or decrease this crime.
The government on its part such approve the ANTI- TORTURE BILL 2010 which is still waiting for its approval. The implementation of that bill will for sure minimize the police’s inhuman behaviour and treatment.
