‘India’s George Floyds’ spur calls for end to police brutality
MORE VICTIMS COME FORWARD AFTER ARREST OF SIX COPS IN TAMIL NADU
The rare arrest of six police officers on murder charges over the death of two men in custody has emboldened victims to speak up against targeted police brutality in India, and demand an end to impunity.
Shopkeeper J Jayaraj, 59, and his son Bennicks Immanuel, 31, were beaten so badly for keeping their shop in the southern state of Tamil Nadu open in breach of coronavirus lockdown rules that they died in hospital last month.
Their deaths caused outrage in a country where human rights groups say minorities have long been subject to police brutality, and inspired comparisons to George Floyd, a Black American man whose death has inspired mass anti-racism protests.
“This case struck a chord because the two men had no criminal background and their only crime according to the police report was to keep their shop open beyond permitted hours,” said V Suresh, general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties.
“This case has already emboldened another family under the jurisdiction of the same police station to speak up. Across India, people have realised that the police’s baton has entered everyone’s homes.” Police in Tamil Nadu did not return repeated calls for comment.
Nine people die in judicial or police custody every 24 hours in India, according to the latest annual report by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Government crime data, by contrast, shows 70 deaths in police custody in 2018 and only includes those where an official complaint was registered by police. No police were convicted over the deaths.
‘So much injustice’
Retired school teacher Jeyraj Issac lives in a village near the town of Sathankulam, where the six policemen arrested over the deaths of Jayaraj and his son were from.
For some time, he has been quietly documenting cases of men being picked up by police, beaten up and either released or sent to jail in the area.
“So much injustice is happening before my eyes,” he told Reuters by phone.
“I am watching everything, and in the last four months have recorded at least 60 cases where people have been picked up by police, beaten and asked to sign blank papers. All they are told is, ‘there is a case against you’.” Issac is also helping the family of S Mahendran, a 28-year-old who was picked up by the Sathankulam police in May in a case where his brother was a suspect, and died shortly after his release. The family says he was tortured in custody.
“It happened a month before Jayaraj and Bennicks died, and the circumstances were the same,” said Issac.
“The police just told the mother that he would be back