New Delhi, June 26
At least five Indians died in custody every day during 2017-2018 – in 11 months from April 2017 to February 2018, Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) said on Tuesday.
Based on figures placed by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs before the Rajya Sabha on March 14, 2018, the report – ‘Torture Update India' – was released on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture 2018.
According to the report, 1,674 custodial deaths — 1,530 deaths in judicial custody and 144 deaths in police custody – took place from April 1, 2017 to February 28, 2018, which turns out to be over five custodial deaths a day. It's higher than four custodial deaths a day on an average reported during 2001 to 2010, it stated.
Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 374 custodial deaths followed by Maharashtra (137), West Bengal (132), Punjab (128), Madhya Pradesh (113), Bihar (109), Rajasthan (89), Tamil Nadu (76), Gujarat (61), Odisha (56), Jharkhand (55), Chhattisgarh (54), Haryana (48), Delhi (47), Assam (37), Andhra Pradesh (35), Uttarakhand and Telangana (17 each), Karnataka (15), Himachal Pradesh (8), Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura (6 each) and Chandigarh and Sikkim (2 each).
Surprisingly, insurgency-hit states such as Jammu & Kashmir and Meghalaya (4 each), Mizoram (3), Manipur, and Nagaland (2 each) reported considerably lower number of custodial deaths.
ACHR said India must ratify the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) – which it signed in 1997 and demanded that the government should place the Prevention of Torture Bill of 2017 as drafted by the Law Commission before Parliament during upcoming monsoon session.
Even neighbouring Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have ratified UNCAT and enacted national laws against torture, it said.
“The ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture is also indispensable if India is serious to extradite fugitives to India as the UNCAT prohibits refoulment or extradition where there are substantial grounds for believing that the requested person sought to be extradited would be in danger of being subjected to torture,” ACHR stated.
“India has already lost the case of extradition of Kim Davy, an accused of Purulia arms dropping case of 1995 in Denmark and extradition of Sanjiv Chawla, an alleged cricket bookie in the United Kingdom, on the ground that prison conditions in India amount to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and that India has not ratified the UNCAT,” it said.
Unless India removed the legal hurdled by ratifying the UNCAT, it might lose other extradition requests as well, it said. “Putting pressure on the European governments for extradition to India will not work as the European governments like the Government of India cannot interfere in sub-judice matters and the financial fugitives will mount legal challenge at every step,” the ACHR report stated.
In addition to Nirav Modi, India had 16 extradition requests pending with the UK. These include extradition requests for Rajesh Kapoor and Seema Kapoor, Patrick Charles Bowring, Tiger Hanif @ Mohd. Hanif Umarji Patel, Palaniappan Rajaratinam, PaviloseFernandez@Paul Samuel, Lokendra Sharma, Sanjeev Kumar Chawla, KartikVenugopal, ShaikhSadiq, S. Balakrishnan, Vijay Mallya, RitikaAvasty, Rishikesh Surendra Kardile, Kavaljit Singh, Mahendra Singh Raijada and ArtiDhir, Chandan Sharma and Raj Kumar Patel, ACHR stated.
