Police atrocity in UP

In what could be termed as sheer brutality and severe human rights violation, two police officials of the Uttar Pradesh police have been caught on camera beating a 6-year-old girl in Etawah. What was the girl’s crime? She was accused of theft and was handed over to the police by residents of the area, who charged her of stealing Rs. 250. Once in the police hands, she was given instant justice, while the police officials behave like law into themselves. Like merciless butchers, the officials roughed her up in the cruelest manner, pulling her hair and ears hard enough for a 6-year-old to bear.

The instances of taking law into their hands are many: in June 2007, in Agra court premises, lawyers, the guardians of legal procedures, beat the 22-year-old Vinod, who had come to the court to sort out a dispute with a relative, ganged up and beat up the boy mercilessly for more than an hour after tying him to a tree. They reportedly shaved a part of his head and even spat on his face. All was coming live on TV. While the poor boy was being slapped from all around, people watched silently.

The law and order has always been a big problem for the state, it is the police atrocities that have fetched a bad name to UP. Going by the statistics, UP has witnessed the highest number of alleged police atrocities and human rights violations with 21,899 cases registered in 2006-07 as against 31,096 countrywide followed by Delhi with 2192 cases. Bihar comes at number four after Haryana. In all these years, neither Mulayam Singh Yadav nor Mayawati has been able to inculcate change in the attitude and treatment of the UP police. No reform process has been initiated either.

Custodial deaths" and encounter deaths masks the harsh reality of what happens at the ground level in Uttar Pradesh police department. Police abuse of authority is so prevalent in UP that the Allahabad High Court responded in outrage in a 2001 opinion: "A large number of petitions are coming up before this court with allegations against the Police that they are behaving like bandits, thieves, rapist and petty criminals…The police are supposed to protect the people and not to rape, black mail or loot them…it is high time that the police also start behaving in a civilised manner."

The National Human Rights Commission's (NHRC) Annual Report for 2000-01 supports the Allahabad High Court's concern. The statistics indicates that for several years UP has topped the list of states in the numbers of custodial deaths and extrajudicial executions. Since 1993 UP has dominated the list of custodial deaths and rape with a total of 940 reported cases so far. During 2000-01, the state topped the list of fake encounter deaths with 68 cases out of the 109 reported to the NHRC from across the country.

The problem of police brutality in UP has a wide range of causes. The caste-based society, the political environment, and administrative set up have given ample power and discretion delegated to the UP police. In a state where Mayawati rules, instances of atrocities against Dalits are frequent due to traditional caste feeling in administration, particularly the police. Furthermore, systemic and endemic corruption in the police and within the political and judicial agencies exacerbates the problem and ensures that such crimes go unpunished.

Though the authorities sacked the sub-inspector and suspend the inspector, who beat the girl, much remains to be done, if the image of the UP police is to be changed from a bad cop to good cop.

null