Police Brutality and Impunity in South Asia: The Indian Scene Kadayam Subramanian On the evening of November 4, a prominent TV news channel in New Delhi went to town on a serious case of police brutality in the Andheri police station in suburban Mumbai (earlier (Bombay) in the state of Maharashtra. A woman and a man were dragged into the police station on the flimsy charge of having ‘quarrelled’ in the public space and brutalised mercilessly. The video clip on the torture went viral on the social media. The mainstream print media did not take similar notice of the event. Was this the result of political manipulation by interested parties in Mumbai? Similar events take place across the country including in the ethnic minority inhabited Northeast India where the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1959 operates. This particular case of police brutality against ordinary people was clearly illegal and constituted a serious human rights violation, punishable under the law. Participants in the TV panel discussion took both pro-and anti-state government postures; one of them called for long-neglected police reforms. Speaking later, the Minister of state for home affairs in the government of Maharashtra repeated the police version that the couple were found to be drunk as if this justified extreme police brutality. Even if the two were to be drunk claimed by the police, this was a minor offence punishable under the local law. The minister, however, chose to remain silent on the important issue of police brutality, which indicated that the guilty policemen were being provided impunity for their criminal conduct. The New Delhi based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has been calling for police reforms in South Asia. The South Asian political elites survive by manipulating and using their political power over the police. Back in 1984, police historian David Bayley had noted the