Ignored to death, while in custody

Vikash Narain Rai

Last Sunday, a ‘routine’ suicide death took place inside Neemka jail at Faridabad, Haryana. Santosh Kumar, 29, a person of Nepalese origin, undergoing three terms for committing dacoities, hanged himself in the bathroom of his jail barrack. The last suicide, in the same manner, reported there in May was of a 22-year-old sex offender. The body of Santosh was handed over to his parents, residents of Gurugram city, after a post-mortem examination at the local hospital. They used to send Rs 5,000 per month to the son and had their last telephonic conversation with him on Sunday itself. A request to transfer him to a jail closer to them was pending with the authorities.

In September 2017, the Supreme Court had taken umbrage at the non-compliance of NHRC guidelines and passed orders to compensate each unnatural jail death since 2012. The grieving parents had no clue about it. Not that the inmates are ever briefed about such matters, but the jails are periodically inspected by the CJM and the Sessions Judge and follow-up reports are duly generated by the Jail Superintendent. In addition, in Haryana, the jail inmates are now addressed by spiritual gurus on ‘Gita-gyan’ to relieve them of their stress.

No jail death goes unreported; however, it is customary to underplay these by the prison authorities. Why so? Because the rogue, corrupt and autocratic prison conditions are invariably the additional punishment for the inmates, and it is not convenient to acknowledge deaths due to practices which are not sanctioned by law. The main cause of unnatural prison deaths, the world over, is suicide; the isolated sex offender being the most vulnerable category. That highlights a vital outcome emanating from prison conditions: these deaths are also the loneliest deaths, when life is bereft of any emotional moorings.

Punjab is not far behind Uttar Pradesh in prison deaths, and that is quite a comment on its prison conditions, being the 16th most populous state in the country. Nevertheless, once in a while, a sensational jail death episode would shatter the routine calm of documenting and reporting of prison deaths to higher authorities. Uncharacteristically, Punjab jails had a series of such incidents during the past few weeks. A key accused in the politically debated 2015 Bargari sacrilege case, shortly to be questioned by SIT, was killed by his fellow inmates in Nabha jail; it had the echo of the paid killing of notorious gangster Munna Bajrangi in UP’s Baghpat jail last year, engineered to the last detail by his rivals. And within a week, there was a violent uprising in Ludhiana jail, leaving two inmates dead while half a dozen escaped. Close on their heels came the death in Amritsar jail, linked to denial of medical attention, of a high-profile accused in the recent record heroin haul from Pakistan border. Such a death was suspected to have external considerations, but jails do kill people.

Ironically, the USA has one of the harshest prison systems in the world. With a 500 per cent increase in their inmate population, they have seen a big surge in death incarceration over a period of 40 years.

However, irrespective of statistics, most of these deaths would easily qualify to be a monument of human indignity. To borrow a phrase from her defence lawyer’s description of the ignominious death of an ordinary black female drug addict in a US prison, she was ‘ignored to death’. She was perceived as either faking illness or exhibiting withdrawal symptoms by the guards, who ignored her repeated pleas for transfer to medical care.

Justice Leila Seth broke many a glass ceiling during her lifetime, including becoming the first female judge of the Delhi High Court, and also the first woman Chief Justice of a state high court (Himachal Pradesh). She was also a part of the Justice Verma Commission of inquiry, which was set up to look into the Nirbhaya episode of 2012, paving the way for new legislation to deal with crime against women. After biscuit tycoon Rajan Pillai was similarly ignored to death in 1995, within four days of his incarceration in Delhi’s Tihar jail, she headed a follow-up judicial inquiry, amid wild allegations of political conspiracy. Her report opened the access to customised private medical care for inmates, which is routinely misused by the wealthy and mighty ever since. In contrast, Mary Tyler’s 1973 account of discriminatory conditions at Hazaribagh jail and their linkages with poverty and unemployment get validation more in academic discussions than policy initiatives.

Overflowing jails

Prison overcrowding is one of the key contributing factors to poor prison conditions around the world, compounding the issues of security, privacy, mental health, violence and self-harm. The overflowing population in Indian jails assumes a vested character with undertrial inmates far outnumbering the convicts and the criminal procedure amendment to do away with the huge pre-trial arrests in crimes attracting up to seven years of imprisonment being applied in exceptions. The State has tried to assuage social tension against dowry and drug menace through the jail route, with little success. With the latest amendments in the laws related to terror and traffic, a cover to address failures on these fronts, the jails are bound to be placed under more stress.

US record is among the worst

• Ironically, the USA has one of the harshest prison systems in the world
• With a 500 per cent increase in their inmate population, they have seen a big surge in incarcerated deaths over a period of 40 years
• The American Bureau of Justice Statistics reported almost 5,000 such deaths in the US in 2014, whereas the corresponding NCRB figure for Indian jails was pegged at 1,700 deaths
• Irrespective of statistics, most of these deaths would easily qualify to be a monument of human indignity. To borrow a phrase from her defence lawyer’s description of the ignominious death of an ordinary black female drug addict in a US prison, she was ‘ignored to death’. She was perceived as either faking illness or exhibiting withdrawal symptoms by the guards who ignored her repeated pleas for transfer to medical care.

CUSTODIAL DEATHS MHA figures

• 2016-17: 1,616 persons died in judicial custody and 145 in police custody
• 2017-18: 1,530 died in judicial custody and 144 in police custody

ACHR figures 

(April 2017-February 2018)

• Uttar Pradesh 374
• Maharashtra 137
• West Bengal 132
• Punjab 128
• Madhya Pradesh 113
• Bihar 109
• Rajasthan 89
• Tamil Nadu 76
• Gujarat 61
• Odisha 56
• Jharkhand 55
• Chhattisgarh 54
• Haryana 48
• Delhi 47
• Uttarakhand 17
• Himachal Pradesh 8
• Chandigarh 2

The writer is former Director, National Police Academy, Hyderabad