These startling finding have come to light in a book by K.P. Singh, a writer who has emerged from the police force. The book, “Rights Based Policing: A Police Diary”, was unveiled today at Haryana Raj Bhawan by Governor A.R. Kidwai. It also divulged that departmental action was initiated against erring police officers only in nine cases and departmental punishment of dismissal from service occurred in only one case, though 16 cases had been registered for the offence of murder, three culpable homicide and one abetment to suicide.

The writer has also looked upon the caste composition of the victims of custodial deaths and found that 65 per cent of the victims belonged to Scheduled and Backward Castes. Eight of them were from Scheduled Caste, 13 from Backward Classes and 12 from the upper castes.

The writer has also found that most victims had been wanted in criminal cases, except for three victims against whom no criminal case had been registered. There had been complaints against only 11 of the victims wanted in murder cases, four each in culpable homicide and dacoity, whereas others had been required in other offences.

The writer has also drawn attention to the police custody death syndrome on the basis of the case studies and said in the new phenomenon, custodial deaths occur after some amount of force is used, though it itself might not be sufficient to cause death.

Book on rights based policing exposes chinks