Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals -- UA080730(4)

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Summary

An incident on 28 June 2008 triggered heated discussion about prison condition: while 37 inmates were being transferred from the overcrowded Arthur Road prison, they were brutally assaulted.  Since then inmates of various prisons have undertaken hunger strikes and protests to highlight their plight.

Prisoners all over the country face overcrowded and appalling jail conditions.  In its 2007-2008 Annual Report, the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that there is “deterioration of the condition of prisons, prisoners, and prison staff because of inadequate allocations for the maintenance and upkeep of prisons from the States”.  They noted the need to increase the capacity of prisons to accommodate those awaiting trial and for convicted prisoners.  The overcrowding further deprived prisoners of access to decent food, soap, clothing, bedding, medical care and sanitation facilities, which they are entitled to, as listed in jail manuals.

Another major problem is the high number of custodial deaths, which are attributed to abysmal health condition and alleged tortures.  According to Asian Centre for Human Rights, the nationwide figures are four custodial deaths per day.

Vulnerability of children are not protected.  This is particularly worrisome for children rescued from crimes.  Children, who are jailed with their mothers, are exposed to criminals on daily basis.  Neither are there any health and education facilities, nor any form of entertainment for them.  Worse is the fate of children rescued from trafficking or child labor who are housed in juvenile homes or state-run observation homes: they are made to do chores like cooking, cleaning and repairs. They are reportedly not permitted to wear underclothes, have to drink water from a tank in the toilet, wear torn clothes without footwear, sleep sticking to one another due to space crunch and are prone to skin infection.

The Prison Ministry of Mumbai Archdiocese will commemorate Prison Ministry Sunday on 3 August 2008.  They hope to raise awareness of the appalling conditons of prisons in Mumbai and all over the country.  The Ministry provides legal assistance to prisoners and its members help prisoners to get in touch with their families.

Action Requested

Please write polite letters expressing your concern on the issue and request the authorities to take serious cognizance of the prevailing conditions in jails, juvenile homes and the high number of custodial deaths.  Urge the government to:

• curb overcrowding in jails and juvenile homes to promote dignity of the prisoners/inmates; with special focus on adequate and hygienic living conditions, edible food and access to basic health facilities;
• provide separate shelters with proper basic amenities for rescued children;
• investigate cases of custodial deaths and the 28 June 2008 incident at Arthur Road prison; and
• ratify the Convention against Torture signed in 1997 to enact legislation to criminalize torture, and sign the first Optional Protocol of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to enable individuals to make complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee.
  

Sample Letter

Background

Many of the accused are in jail for bailable offences and thousands of the inmates stay in jail despite bail being granted because the surety amounts are too high.  As a result, prisons are overpopulated by 250 percent.  In some prisons, the inmates sleep in shifts occupying the 3 x 6 feet space on the floor reserved for them.  These conditions echo the situation of jails across the country and the earlier principle of ‘bail not jail’ is being substituted by ‘jail not bail’.

The statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau show that there were 1,357 custodial deaths across India in the year 2005.  “India has the highest number of cases of police torture and custodial deaths among the world’s democracies and the weakest legislation against torture,” said Raj Khaneja, a senior lawyer.  “Unfortunately, in India, torture is seen as routine police behavior to extract confessions.” A retired police official admitted, on the condition of anonymity, “confessions have to be extracted with strictness to keep alive the fear of the police in people’s hearts.”

However, the severity of the torture problem in India is far worse than statistics suggest.  This is because victims rarely report cases against the police due to fear of reprisals.  “More than half the cases of custodial torture are not even reported,” said Ashok Bajaj, a human rights activist.  “I’ve often encountered cases where custodial torture has triggered hearing or speech loss, permanent disability and loss of limb or psychological trauma amongst individuals.  But the families are still not keen to report matters.”

As India has not ratified the Convention against Torture, its citizens cannot seek justice through international law. Nor can India’s torture cases be raised as individual complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee as India has not signed the first Optional Protocol of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The huge number of custodial deaths is not only manifestation of violence but also the abysmal health conditions.  The major complaint of many prisons is skin disease and many prisoners complain that no matter what the ailment is, they are given a standard treatment of two to three types of tablets.

An All India Reforms Committee appointed in 1980 under the Chairmanship of Justice A. N. Mulla, recommended the setting up of a National Prison Committee to bring about modernisation in prisons, but three decades later little has changed.  Another committee appointed under the Chairmanship of V.R. Krishna Iyer in 1988 to look into the issues of women prisoners did not bear any fruit either.  Adv. Vijay Hiremath in his article titled ‘Jails that fail Justice’ published in Combat Law alleges that the major reason for neglect of prison conditions is that the imprisoned are mainly poor, illiterate from disadvantaged sectors like Dalits and minorities for whom society has little concern.


Source:
Times of India
DNA
Hindustan Times
Tehelka – June issue
Combat Law, March-April issue
Asian Centre for Human Rights Report: Torture in India 2008

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