CUSTODIAL TORTURE: A GROSS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
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Abstract
Ensuring liberty and upholding dignity of an individual is the paramount concern of every democratic state. Living in this era of globalisation, any incident violating human rights is of pivotal importance to the world at large. Expanding ambit of human rights on one hand and increasing counts of crime rate on other hand, poses a challenge to all law-enforcing machineries to strike a balance between the two.
Human rights and custodial torture are contradictory terms. Torture in custody at the hands of protectors of law i.e. police is considered to be a harshest form of human rights violation. Perseverance of human rights can be guaranteed only by curbing this unnecessary evil. The expression “torture” has neither been defined in the Constitution of India nor in any other penal law. Issue of custodial torture is concern of international community and a universal subject. Thus, custodial forcefulness, suffering and abuse by police authority are not peculiar to this country but a widespread phenomenon.
India, being the biggest democracy of the world, embedded in its laws, protection of life and personal libertyas one of the fundamental rights. Still, existence of cases of custodial torture and third degree upon under-trails and suspects is an integral part of investigation. The former Supreme
Court judge, V.R. Krishna Iyer, J., has said that custodial torture is worse than terrorism because the authority of the State is behind it.
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