A staggering 1,275 people died in police custody in India between 2001 and 2013 but less than 50 per cent of custodial deaths led to a case being registered, data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows.
The deaths in judicial custody - or in prisons-reported by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) are much higher.
About 12,727 people are reported to have died in judicial custody between 2001 and 2010.
Since the turn of the century, the least deaths were reported in 2010 (70), while the most were reported in 2005 (128 deaths). On an average, 98 people die in police custody every year in India.
The data does not reflect the “true picture”, according to Torture in India 2011, a report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), as it does not include deaths in the custody of the armed forces.
The report also cites instances where custodial deaths were not reported to or recorded by the NHRC.
Among the large states, Haryana filed a case for every custodial death during the period. The states of Manipur, Jharkhand and Bihar also registered cases for 100 per cent of custodial deaths, but they had reported only two, three and six deaths, respectively.
In comparison, Maharashtra registered cases for only 11.4 per cent of the custodial deaths. It is, however, possible that multiple deaths were clubbed under one case.
The possibility of police officers being convicted dwindles at the chargesheeting stage itself: 34 policemen are chargesheeted for every 100 cases registered, and 12 per cent of the chargesheeted policemen are convicted.
In Maharashtra, only 14 percent of cases saw policemen being chargesheeted, and none was convicted.
In Uttar Pradesh, 71 policemen were chargesheeted and 17 were convicted. In Chhattisgarh, 80 percent of chargesheeted policemen were convicted.
The Prevention of Torture Bill, passed by the Lok Sabha in 2010, has now lapsed. It was introduced in order to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
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