Demons Within: The Systematic Practice of Torture by Indian Police (English Edition)

"Torture is so universally accepted and encouraged among India's police forces that it is a virtual certainty that anyone who is a police officer in India knows that torture occurs, has definitely been exposed to it, probably has participated in it and almost certainly has helped cover it up," write authors Singh and Nevers.

Every day between 2002 and 2009, four people have died or been killed in police custody in India. Many of these are tortured to death. "India is in a worrying state of denial about torture," concluded the Asian Center for Human Rights. In 20120, the Asian Human Rights Commission reported: "Torture, in its cognate and express forms, is practiced in every police station in the country."

Sister Meena Lalita Barwa, a Christian nun, is an example of how Indian police treat India's minorities. She was abducted on August 25, 2008 by a mob of 50 men, who stripped her, gang-raped her and tried to burn her alive. When her kidnappers paraded Sister Meena past 12 Indian police officers, she stated: "I went to them asking to protect me and I sat in between two policemen but they did not move... They were talking very friendly with the man who had attacked me and stayed back."

"Indian police officers are greatly rewarded for participating in torture," says Singh. "Mohammad Izhar Alam is a prime example." In October, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Badal promised former Punjab Police DGP Alam an MLA seat. U.S. State Department memos revealed by Wikileaks exposed Alam for leading a death squad in the 1980s and 90s. Self-styled as "Alam Sena," the death squad targeted thousands of Punjabis for elimination in "encounter killings."

Encounter killings are in-custody murders by Indian police staged as armed encounters. Top-ranking officers like Alam, as well as those invited to speak in CA, order such behavior from street officers. A Human Rights Watch report from 2009 quoted one Indian officer who said, "I was told to do an encounter' ... I am looking for my target."

Human rights activists who try to expose Indian police atrocities are themselves disappeared. "Just look at Jaswant Singh Khalra case," says Nevers. "He compiled evidence in 1994 that Punjab Police had murdered up to 25,000 people over 10 years they were tortured in custody and extra-legally killed. Their bodies were wrongly marked as unidentified' and then illegally cremated. But when Khalra went public about these crimes, police abducted him in 1995, torturing him and killing him in custody."

Five officers were witnessed kidnapping Khalra on September 6, 1995. Others, including one officer who came forward, testified to his murder in custody. After sixteen years on the case, attorney Rajwinder Bains finally achieved a court victory in November 2011 when India's Supreme Court upheld life sentences for all five officers who killed Khalra.

Asked in "Demons Within" why officers like Alam are rewarded, Rajwinder Bains, attorney for the prosecution in Khalra's murder case, said: "People like Alam," he responded, "paved the way for the current rulers by killing any opposition. The police kept the current tyrants in power, so the government must return the favor."