POLICE BRUTALITY
- Kidher Rahman
- Mar 27, 2022
- 5 min read
From the streets to the slums of India, unlawful use of force by police can end up in severe injuries or even death and devastation.
As we have seen and witnessed many times in India and around the world, most of the time the victim or misunderstood civilians getting seriously injured or killed, are sometimes fueled by discrimination of caste or religion.
In many countless cases, police are very quick to react and make sudden decisions which mostly involve the use of force, like in response to protests or demonstrations. Moreover, officers who kill and injure people unnecessarily are most often not brought to justice.
Police Brutality is used to refer to various human rights violations by police, which might include racial abuse, beatings, torture, or unlawful killing.
Baptism/Custodial Torture:
Custodial torture is a form of torture that generally happens when a person alleged of any crime is under the custody of law enforcement officials. The supreme court has held that custodial torture is a naked violation of human dignity and degradation which destroys, to a very large extent, human personality.
Judicial custody means that an accused is in the custody of a magistrate and is kept in jail. Police officers found guilty of custodial deaths often manage to escape punishment, and the victim’s relatives are seldom provided with financial compensation.
In recent times, a 21-year-old, Law college Student named Abdul Rahim, had a part-time job at a pharmaceutical store where he left at around 11:30 for a delivery and was stopped by a police officer and was arrested for refusing to pay a fine as they framed him for not wearing a mask. This took place in MR Nagar, near Kodungaiyur on a Friday Night (14.01.2022). And Stated that he slapped a policeman, and was jailed for it. The police constable named Bhoominathan exaggerated that he got hit by him and the station inspector named Nasima was entertaining it.
As soon as the case was filed, he was allowed to go but without his bicycle. Abdul Rahim insisted that he want his source of transportation for the delivery he needed to make, and as he waited outside, the police named Uthirakumar dragged him back into the jail cell and came back with a thick red rod/pipe and the torture began.
After a few days, Abdul Rahim was hospitalized and that clearly explains what happened and what kind of torture he had to go through.
First, he was seriously beaten by a thick rod/pipe, where they stand in the victim’s thighs and bash his heels, which deals severe pain to the head and body. And he was made to stand against the wall for more severe punishments. He was mentally abused as he stated that he wasn’t even treated as a human being by rather like a lowlife with no meaning to his existence, he went through verbal and religious abuse, he wasn’t given any food, all the police there just kicked and abused him as he sat there half-naked.
When he got kicked in the face with a boot, he got physically wounded in his eye and bleed, and he was ordered to clear the blood with his own shirt in the toilet by Bhoominathan and later on hurled drainage water on him to forcefully make him clean his shirt.
He was beaten naked, abused, got injured, bled, and took all sorts of punishments from them and still remained strong and stood for his justice.
This is just one in many intolerable acts and cases all around India and the entire world as well.
Cases of Police Brutality:
• 22 June 2020 – Custodial death of father and son, Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu. The duo had been beaten, brutally tortured, and sexually assaulted.
• 23 September 2021 – In Sipajhar, Assam, three people were killed and several others injured by police firing during a protest staged by evicted residents.
• 1 January, eye injuries in the 2019–2020 Chilean protests: in two separate incidents two men were permanently blinded in one of their eyes as a result of being hit by tear gas grenades shot by Chilean riot police.
• 25 May 2020: George Floyd, 46, was murdered by Officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was prostrate on the ground, lying face down. The video evidence shows him pleading for his life, while Chauvin's knee remains on his neck for the duration of the video. The murder of George Floyd led to protests around the world and led to many celebrities condemning police brutality. Chauvin was promptly fired by the Minneapolis Police Department and was initially charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The charge of second-degree murder was later added. Chauvin was found guilty of all three charges on 20 April 2021. The other three officers that were near Floyd at the time and did not help Floyd were charged with aiding and abetting the killing.
• 2018 – The Thoothukudi violence was an incident in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu where 13 unarmed protestors were killed and 100+ injured by the Tamil Nadu Police.
•19 June 2017: During the Venezuelan protests, 17-year-old Fabián Urbina was killed by a National Guardsman who fired live ammunition at protesters, wounding at least four others.
•2015 – The Andhra shootout was an incident in the Seshachalam forest in Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh that killed 20 suspected woodcutters.
Policing Protest:
Governments must ensure that everyone can enjoy the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, including protests.
There are clear international guidelines for police conduct during protests:
· It is the role of police to facilitate peaceful protests. If tensions arise, they have to de-escalate them.
· If some protestors engage in violent actions, this does not turn the otherwise peaceful protest into a non-peaceful assembly. Police should ensure those who remain peaceful can continue protesting.
· Acts of violence by a small minority do not justify indiscriminate use of force.
· If the use of force is unavoidable to secure the safety of others, police must use the minimum force necessary.
· The decision to disperse a protest must be a last resort – when all other less restrictive means have proven to be unsuccessful.
· Tear gas or water cannons to disperse a protest should only be used if people can leave the scene. They may only be used in response to widespread violence and where more targeted means have failed to contain the violence.
· Firearms should NEVER be used to disperse a crowd.
The Conclusion:
In Conclusion, The Indian state plays an important role in perpetuating police image and behaviour that threatens, oppresses and brutalises people. First, hardly anyone is ever punished. Second, atrocities committed by abusing the AFSPA (The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act) apart, even in day-to-day policing, the State makes it very clear that its coercive arm, that is the police, can kill you anytime anywhere. That is the reason that despite all the pretence of modernization Indian street cops still habitually carry lathis (ranging from three feet to six feet long bamboo poles) and military rifles, even if there is no threat of a terrorist attack.
The British, who gave us the Indian police in form and feature, do not allow their own street cops to carry firearms in public. Jon Kelly had reported for the BBC that 82% of the Bobbies said in a survey that they did not want to carry weapons because the very principle of the British police was ‘policing by consent’ and they need not be seen perpetually in a threatening posture.
The mantra of policing in India has become “Know thy master, protect thy master’s interests, harass or kill his enemies, and prey on the poor and the powerless with brutality to keep them perpetually suppressed”. The conduct and duty of police officers “must conform to the law of the land, respect basic human freedom, and obey as well as maintain law and order in the country”. The carte blanche enjoyed by the police forces under colonial legislation must be urgently attenuated by modern reforms so that only the rule of law prevails, not the rule by force.
Credits:
Written by: Kidher Rahman
Edited by: C R Cassandra Rifflin
References:
#Police,#Brutality
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