New Delhi, April 21, 2026: The recent conviction and death sentences handed to nine Tamil Nadu police officers in the 2020 custodial torture and killing of P. Jayaraj and his son Bennix have been hailed as a landmark moment of accountability. Yet, for many human rights advocates, the verdict underscores a deeper, more troubling reality: custodial violence in India is not an aberration but a structural feature of the policing and prison system.
In June 2020, during COVID-19 lockdowns, the father-son duo from Thoothukudi district were arrested for allegedly keeping their mobile phone shop open beyond permitted hours. What followed, according to the charge sheet and CBI investigation, was horrific: sustained beatings, sexual violence, and injuries so severe that blood stained the walls and toilet of the Sathankulam police station. The victims were allegedly forced to clean up evidence of their own abuse. Both died within days of custody-Bennix on June 22 and Jayaraj on June 23.
The case, transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, led to the conviction of all nine accused officers in March 2026. On April 6, the Madurai district court sentenced them to death under the “rarest of rare” doctrine, also directing compensation of 1.40 crore to the family. The judgment has been celebrated for piercing the veil of police impunity. However, experts caution against viewing it as systemic change.
Data reveals the scale of the crisis. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has consistently recorded hundreds of custodial deaths annually. In the first 74 days of 2026 alone (up to March 15), 170 such deaths were reported across India, continuing a pattern where annual figures hover between 140 and 176 in recent years. Between 2011 and 2022, the National Crime Records Bureau documented 1,107 deaths in police custody with zero convictions of police officers. The Jayaraj-Bennix case stands out precisely because it is an exception, enabled largely by CBI intervention and public outrage.
India’s constitutional framework, particularly Article 21 guaranteeing the right to life and personal liberty, along with procedural safeguards on arrest and detention, provides some protections. Yet there is no comprehensive domestic law that specifically defines and criminalises all forms of custodial torture. India signed the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) in 1997 but has yet to ratify it, leaving a critical gap in legal deterrence and international accountability.
The problem runs deeper than legislation. Custodial violence occurs in opaque settings where police often investigate their own. Evidentiary standards favour the state, with independent medical documentation and witness protection remaining weak. Investigations frequently lack transparency, allowing abuse to be concealed or minimised.
Moreover, the very culture of policing perpetuates the issue. A 2022 visit to Bengaluru’s police commissioner’s office highlighted symbolic imagery of officers subduing raging bulls, an institutional mindset that equates effective policing with domination and control. The Status of Policing in India Report 2025 further exposes troubling attitudes: nearly two-thirds of police personnel surveyed justified violence against suspects of serious offences for the “greater good,” with significant portions supporting third-degree methods even against witnesses.
Custodial torture extends beyond interrogation rooms into prisons and the daily routines of discipline.
The Supreme Court’s 2024 judgment in Sukanya Shantha v. Union of India struck down caste-based provisions in prison manuals that mandated segregation and discriminatory labour allocation. The ruling exposed how colonial-era legacies and caste hierarchies continue to shape incarceration, disproportionately targeting Dalits, Adivasis, Denotified Tribes, and other marginalised groups as “habitual offenders.” Data from the National Campaign Against Torture consistently shows that victims of custodial deaths are overwhelmingly from poor and socially vulnerable backgrounds, often accused of minor offences. Gender adds another layer of vulnerability, while border security forces have faced allegations of similar abuses against migrants and frontier communities. The Global Torture Index has flagged India for systemic use of torture by state actors, particularly against the marginalised.
Ratifying UNCAT remains essential but insufficient on its own. Without independent oversight mechanisms, mandatory video recording of interrogations, timely medical examinations, and presumptions of state liability in cases of custodial injury or death, legal reforms risk being symbolic. True change demands institutional transformation: shifting from a culture of impunity to one of accountability, providing reparations for survivors, and addressing the caste and class biases embedded in the criminal justice system.
As India grapples with this verdict, the real test lies ahead. Unless custodial violence is recognised not as isolated brutality but as woven into the architecture of power and control, impunity will persist. The deaths of Jayaraj and Bennix should catalyze deeper reform – not merely another rare exception in a system designed to protect its own.
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