Mangaluru (The Hindu): ‘People are scared of questioning police action fearing victimisation’. Coming down on police atrocity and illegal detention, acting chairperson of the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission Meera Saksena has asked the police to take action only as per law and not beyond that..

Speaking at a conference on ‘Human rights education for social work practice’ at the School of Social Work here on Friday, she said that people are scared of questioning police action fearing victimisation and the likelihood of being booked under false cases.

Ms. Saksena said that family members were being called to police stations, and were tortured and illegally confined for several days to get information of people they were looking for. The commission has been receiving many such complaints. “Whether they like it or not, the police cannot take law into their hands.” This is not a police raj, she added.

Ms. Saksena said there was pressure for police to bring the accused to book. There is a possibility of the police erring and infringing upon the rights of people while delivering results. “But one thing that the police will have to bear in mind is that the senior officer will not come to your help if there is infringement of human rights.” She asked the people to raise their voice against such instances and lodge a complaint with the commission.

Clarifying that he was not for adoption of extralegal methods for crime detection, Police Commissioner M. Chandra Sekhar admitted of instances of infringement of human rights. He expressed the need to look at the issue from the perspective of the police. The police were often under pressure from the media and other organisations to deliver results. “If we arrest the accused and he gets bail, we are shown as favouring the accused. We are questioned for not detaining accused and giving him some blows.”

Mr. Sekhar said there should be a sea change in the attitude of the people. “There should not be any deadline in cracking the case,” he said added, “we [police] should come out of a mindset of holding ourselves responsible for wrongs in society.”

Photo credit: The Hindu