Even as the Bombay High Court last week directed the Maharashtra police to form a panel to probe custodial deaths in the State, experts suggest that if the State is serious about tackling the problem it must ask independent agencies to investigate all such cases.
The court recently directed the DGP to probe the reasons for the alarming rate of custodial deaths in the State and come up with solutions within two weeks.
297 cases in 10 yearsMaharashtra tops the national chart in custodial deaths. Between 2000 and 2011, it recorded 297 of the 1,242 custodial deaths in the country, as per the National Crime Records Bureau data. In 2011, of the 32 people who committed suicide in police custody nationally, 11 were from Maharashtra.
The same year, of the 122 custodial deaths recorded nationally, 40 were in Maharashtra. However, only four cases were registered, while only three met judicial enquiry and two faced magisterial enquiry.
The conviction rate over the years, however, has remained zero, worrying experts.
Advocate Vijay Hiremath, who has closely followed custodial deaths in Maharashtra, alleges that there are no convictions because the State is “blatantly involved in protecting its officers.” He pitches for an independent agency to probe all such cases.
“The police officers know they have the sanction to do whatever they want. Then there are no proper laws to protect those in custody. By entrusting the probe with the Crime Branch or CID, it is basically the same people [who are accused] who are probing the case,” he says.
In the 297 custodial death cases in the State over the decade, only 14 FIRs and 19 charge sheets were registered. A major reason for the poor conviction rate, according to senior criminal law advocate Majid Memon, is that “witnesses are among the offenders and there are no independent witnesses.”
Unless an “independent, reliable and professional agency investigates the case” guilty officers will continue to go scot-free, he says.
The High Court, while ordering a CBI investigation recently into the alleged custodial death of a 25-year-old man, Agnello Valdaris, instructed that all police stations should have a senior police officer at night and said that the police should not be allowed to interrogate undertrials after midnight.
Ram Puniyani, formerly professor at IIT-Mumbai and human rights activist, says: “Due to various factors, the police in Maharashtra have developed a hardened attitude. They need to be sensitised to weaker sections. We need reforms and professionalism in the police.”
