A specific anti-torture law needs to be detailed, comprehensive and conform to international standards | The Indian Express

A specific anti-torture law needs to be detailed, comprehensive and conform to international standards | The Indian Express

Written by Maja Daruwala |Updated: September 27, 2019 11:21:56 am

The writer is board member and senior advisor, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

A specific anti-torture law needs to be detailed, comprehensive and conform to international standards

Torture is an endemic characteristic of Indian policing. A commitment to eradicating it requires the police force as a whole to have zero tolerance for the practice besides a specific anti-torture law.

For too long, supervisory officers within the security establishment have turned a blind eye to this everyday criminality within. (Illustration by C R Sasikumar)

The home minister’s recent pronouncement that the days of third-degree torture are gone is extraordinarily welcome. His announcement is as much a signal to the security forces to lay off this practice as it is an acknowledgment about something that everyone from the Supreme Court to the subaltern knows — that torture is an endemic characteristic of Indian policing.