Priest calls for human rights training for Indian police

(April 17, 2010) An increase in the incidents of torture and death in police and judicial custody in India shows the police need lessons in human rights, an Indian Catholic Church official said on Friday. The New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) reported on Tuesday that the number of deaths in custody in India increased by 41.66 percent in the past six years. The Indian Supreme Court on Thursday also called for firm action to check torture and custodial deaths. “They are human rights violations,” Capuchin Father Nithiya Sagayam, secretary of the Indian bishops’ Commission for Justice, Peace and Developments, told UCA News. The country’s top court said torture and deaths in lock-ups and police stations had increased across the country and described such incidents are “the most heinous crime by men in uniform.” A person in police custody should be considered innocent unless his guilt is proven, Father Sagayam said. “Police have no right to torture or harass a person in their custody. Instead the law expects them to safeguard the personal liberty and life of citizens.” Such crimes occur because of lack of proper training for police personnel, he noted. First of all, the government should teach them the basics about human rights,” he said and pointed out that most victims are the voiceless poor and marginalized. “In many cases the actual criminals are out in the open and the innocent are behind bars,” the priest said.