Around one thousand two hundred persons were killed in police custody all over the country in last eight years. Surprisingly most victims were over tortured to death within 48 hours after they have been taken into police custody. This is the naked revealing of Asian Centre of Human Rights (ACHR) in a recent report released on torture in India.
The highest number of such deaths were reported from Maharashtra with nearly 200 cases between 2001 to 2009. It is followed by Uttar Pradesh with 128 cases, Gujarat with 113 cases, Andhra Pradesh with 85 cases & West Bengal with 83 cases. Among North East states, Assam tops the list with 74 custodial deaths followed by Meghalaya with 16 cases, Arunachal Pradesh with 11 cases, Tripura with 9 cases and Manipur & Sikkim with one case each.
There are some controversies like; though Manipur recorded only one torture case during the period, ACHR has already filed 50 complaints of extra-judicial killings from 2003 to 2009. Same thing was also highlighted in some other North-East states & Jammu & Kashmir. Apart from that National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) does not have jurisdiction to investigate rights violations committed by the armed forces.
The major problem being, the deaths in the custody of army and para-military forces, which are under central government, are not reported to the NHRC. Hence even though, the ACHR released the report on the basis of NHRC informations, the actual figure may be quite high, which is really a worry unlimited. Hence without indulging in blame game, the government must check the custodial deaths, as it tarnish the image of India in International arena.