Police brutality in India

Police brutality is defined as the use of excessive physical assault or verbal assault during police
procedures, such as apprehending or interrogating a suspect. Deadly force is not always
excessive force. However, when deadly force exceeds the force that is necessary to create a safe
environment, it is considered police brutality.

Extremist police violence is a recurring issue. Recent social movements have re-ignited police
violence as a subject of public revealation, yet there has been little progress in reducing the
number of people killed by police. Without further efforts in research and legal reform, this
everyday crisis will continue. Thus,fundamental laws and procedure to deal with the force used
by police is extreme need of the time.

These laws should have the potential to disrupt current policing practices that continue to
determine which lives are valued—physically and which can be lost to extreme police violence.
While many strategies for addressing police violence have been proposed, existing discussions
do not fully engage a primary factor in police violence and major barrier to accountability: use of
force policies. These are the policies that codify the rules that govern the levels and types of
force that police are permitted to use against citizens, including deadly force. These rules are
important because they are not only used to train police and guide their engagements with the
community, but are also used as benchmarks when evaluating whether their use of force is
excessive.

This Article examines use of force policies that often precipitate and absolve police violence as
not only a legal or moral issue, but distinctively as a public health issue with widespread health
impacts for individuals and communities. This approach allows us to shift the focus from the
individual actions of police and citizens to a more holistic assessment of how certain policy
preferences put police in the position to not treat certain civilians’ lives as carefully as they
should. In sum, we seek to develop an fine understanding of the substance of existing use of
force policies and discuss how these policies relate to police violence in general and public
health in particular. Not unlike seat belt laws or mandatory vaccinations, we see use of force
policy reform as a site where a public health law sensibility can create the conditions for
increasing survivability and decreasing adverse health outcomes by minimizing the likelihood of
police force use and its severity. This qualitative assessment takes a “deep” look at the language
used to confer and restrain police power, which provides a basis from which to think through the
link between police practice, and community health outcomes.

From the time of jallianwala bagh massacre to the time of police violence in delhi riot and even
on the migrant labours during pandemic are despicable. In the last few monyhs, India has been
engulfed in the biggest nationwide protests in over four decades. People of all religions, classes,
castes and ages took to the streets in opposition to a new citizenship amendment act (CAA)
passed by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his Hindu nationalist BJP government, which
many say discriminates against Muslims and undermines India’s secular foundations. The
government has dealt with the dissent with increasing repression, with authorities banning
gatherings of more than four people and demonstrators met with batons and tear gas.

Nowhere has the crackdown been so brutal and so openly communal against the Muslim
community than in Uttar Pradesh. According to accounts given to the Guardian by dozens of
victims, witnesses and activists, police in the state stand accused of a string of allegations: firing
indiscriminately into crowds; beating Muslim bystanders in the streets; raiding and looting
Muslim homes while shouting Islam phobic slurs and Hindu nationalist slogans; detaining and
torturing Muslim children. The allegations further include forcing signed confessions and filing
bogus criminal charges against thousands of Muslims who had never been to a protest. students
were allegedly tortured with bamboo rods and made to shout Hindu nationalist slogans Jai Shri
Ram” and “Har Har Mahadev”.

Hundreds of Muslims and activists remain behind bars and thousands have been placed on police
lists. And the orders, it appears, come from the very top.

BJP state chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, a militant Hindu nationalist notorious for his open
hatred and persecution of Muslims, pledged to take revenge on protesters in the wake of the
unrest. The police took him at his word. “It was detrimental for Muslims. On December 13, the
Delhi police unleashed brutal violence against thousands of students and teachers of Jamia Millia
Islamia (JMI), attacking them with baton and tear gas.
The students and teachers were taking out a march to Indian parliament against the
discriminatory citizenship amendment act (also known as CAB), recently passed by far-right
Indian government. The protests in Jamia university is part of a nationwide popular protest
actions against the CAB and NRC, which critics argue is an attempt by the government to create
a Hindu majoritarian nation.

The Delhi police, which comes directly under the control of the central government led by right
wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is notorious for brutality against student protesters. Police
thrashed students of Jawaharlal Nehru University who were protesting against hostel fee hike
and demanding affordable education.these are the few incidents of of radicalized police violence
in India.

We need to review the use of force by police across the country. We also need to see what rules
and procedure must be abide by the police and its agencies while using forces.use of excessive
force should be abolished unless it comes to the lives of the police officers. We need to connect
those instances of police brutality to the aspects of negative health outcomes of the victims in
terms of physical, social, mental, emotionaland psychological impacts. The bare minimum use of
force should be applied.policers officers should abide by the rules of reasonableness and basic
protection i.e. the intensity of force used should be according to:- i)severity of crime committed,
ii)whether the subject poses threat to the lives of the police officers so that they can use violence
in private defense,iii)whether they are resisting arrest or trying to evade etc.