Seven months pregnant Dalit female was brutally beaten by a police

Lilabati Chowdhury, seven months pregnant and a mother of two, was brutally beaten by a police patrol party from the Beharampore police station in the Indian state of West Bengal at midnight on Aug. 7, 2004. Mrs. Chowdhury's husband, Chhutka Chowdhury, is a daily wage labourer who catches fish in his spare time. The Chowdhury family belongs to the Dalit, or so-called Untouchable, community and is very poor. On the night of Aug. 7 while Mr. Chowdhury was fishing in a nearby river, the police were searching for him. When they reached the Chowdhury's house, they prodded Mrs. Chowdhury awake with their batons. Mrs. Chowdhury asked them why her family was being harassed since no complaint had been made against them. She also protested against the vulgar language used by the police towards her. The police then brutally assaulted her with their batons, seriously injuring her. Mrs. Chowdhury was admitted to the Baharampur Block Hospital in critical condition. Several uniformed policemen went to the hospital late that night and threatened her not to speak to anyone about the incident.

India has rejected all calls to ratify the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) on the grounds that the domestic mechanisms available in the country are capable of preventing brutality and inhuman treatment. The incident mentioned above occurred in West Bengal. It was while deciding a similar case from West Bengal in 1997 that the Supreme Court of India ruled that torture in all forms must be prevented within the country. The Supreme Court directed the government to take all steps necessary to prevent torture in the country. The court also directed the government to instruct its law enforcing agencies to implement the court order forthwith without any default whatsoever.

Mr. and Mrs. Chowdhury were not aware of the decree of the Supreme Court. Neither did they know that the Criminal Procedure Code of India and the Police Act, though centuries old, also mandate that if any house is to be searched the police must obtain a search warrant from a magistrate. Furthermore, if there are any female occupants in the house, the search must be conducted in the presence of a female police officer. All that Mr. and Mrs. Chowdhury knew for sure was that, had they dared to complain about their ordeal, it would be investigated by the same officers that had attacked Mrs. Chowdhury and that they would be further persecuted and charged with an offence that they did not commit. They would then most likely be thrown in jail as is a common practice in India.