Death by cops cameras including bodycams can deter police violence but are politicians serious

Death by cops cameras including bodycams can deter police violence but are politicians serious

After two custodial deaths in as many days, an embarrassed Tamil Nadu police has issued an SOP for custodial interrogation. Only last month, six Chennai cops were arrested on murder charges after a 25-year-old Dalit man died in custody. Meanwhile, police in Saharanpur, UP, have been caught on camera brutally beating nine Muslim men arrested after Friday’s rioting incidents. Custodial violence is a colonial legacy but the reality is that generations of Indian politicians and therefore cops have winked at this scourge.

India is a rare democracy yet to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture. Laws to deter custodial violence are sketchy: IPC Sections 330 and 331 punish voluntary hurt to extort confession but these are general provisions not specifically targeting violence by police against a person in lawful custody. Through March, April and May this year NHRC registered 52 and 691 cases respectively of deaths in police and judicial custody. Most custodial deaths are blamed on ‘natural causes’ – and cops frequently get away with this, too.

Judicial intervention hasn’t been very effective. The Supreme Court’s DK Basu guidelines attempted to safeguard legal rights of accused persons. In recent years, SC has directed complete CCTV coverage of police stations with storage of footage, oversight committees at district and state levels for technical support, and retrieval of footage on torture complaints. Progress is slow. There’s another issue – cameras can’t just be ‘stationary’. India must introduce body cameras for police. Bodycams aren’t a full guarantee against police violence, but they have proven to be a good deterrent. They are cheap and can and must be widely used, with rules for storing data. In some cases, bodycams help cops, too, if faced with wrong accusations. But nothing will happen till politicians condone police violence.