On March 6, 2026, ten police officers in plain clothes arrived in Krishnarajapuram in Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu and took away a 26-year-old Dalit engineering graduate, R. Akash Delison. He had been accused of attacking two men, a serious allegation that required investigation and trial. Instead, within forty-eight hours, he was dead.

In his dying declaration, Akash described how he was blindfolded, his legs placed on stones, covered with a wet sack, and beaten repeatedly with an iron rod. The police offered a different explanation: he had jumped from a bridge while attempting to escape. Akash died on March 8. He was in custody. He never saw a courtroom.

His death raises a question that extends far beyond a single district in Tamil Nadu. It asks whether the constitutional promise of liberty truly survives inside India's police stations.

Ten days before Akash's death, two United Nations Special Rapporteurs, Alice Jill Edwards, on torture and cruel treatment, and Morris Tidball-Binz, on extrajudicial executions, issued a formal communication raising concern over allegations of torture and custodial deaths in India. The rapporteurs pointed to credible reports suggesting a troubling pattern in which marginalised communities, particularly Dalits, Muslims and Adivasis, were disproportionately affected. Torture and extrajudicial killings, they emphasised, violate norms of international law so fundamental that no state can justify them, principles recognised in international law as jus cogens.

International scrutiny alone does not determine India's constitutional obligations. But the concerns raised echo a reality that Indian courts and human rights bodies have documented for decades.

The Constitution is unambiguous. Article 21 guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. Article 22 protects individuals from arbitrary arrest and guarantees the right to legal counsel.

Recognising the vulnerability of individuals in police custody, the Supreme Court has repeatedly attempted to transform these guarantees into enforceable safeguards. In D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, the Court laid down detailed guidelines governing arrest and detention. Officers must identify themselves, prepare an arrest memo, inform a relative or friend, conduct a medical examination, and produce the accused before a magistrate within 24 hours.

Years later, in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar, the Court emphasised that arrest cannot be routine. Police officers must record reasons demonstrating that an arrest is necessary, and magistrates must independently examine those reasons before authorising detention.

More recently, the Court attempted to address the opacity surrounding custodial abuse. In Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljit Singh, it was directed that all police stations install CCTV cameras with audio and video recording, with footage preserved for extended periods, so that what happens inside a police station should not remain invisible.

These safeguards represent the minimum constitutional threshold for lawful policing. Yet the persistence of custodial deaths suggests that they often exist more on paper than in practice.

Data compiled from the National Human Rights Commission indicates that India records thousands of custodial deaths each year. While the majority occur in judicial custody, deaths in police custody, where the risk of coercive interrogation is greatest, remain disturbingly frequent. Convictions in such cases are exceedingly rare.

Prison population breakdown

The gap between law and enforcement is therefore stark. When a person dies in custody, the burden of explanation rests on the State, a principle recognised by the Supreme Court in Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa. In practice, however, families often struggle to establish what happened behind the closed doors of a police station.

India's legal framework against custodial abuse is not insignificant. Constitutional protections, judicial precedent and statutory procedures together create a robust architecture intended to safeguard individual liberty. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, continues to mandate judicial inquiries into custodial deaths, recognising that investigations conducted by the same police force involved in the incident may lack credibility.

Yet the effectiveness of these safeguards ultimately depends on institutional willingness to enforce them. When accountability mechanisms fail, familiar patterns emerge; arrest procedures are ignored, CCTV cameras remain non-functional, medical examinations are delayed, and investigations are conducted by institutions whose conduct is under scrutiny.

Two reforms that could strengthen accountability remain conspicuously absent. India signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 1997 but has yet to ratify it. Ratification would require the country to enact domestic legislation explicitly criminalising torture and establishing stronger mechanisms of accountability.

Similarly, a comprehensive anti-torture statute remains elusive. A Prevention of Torture Bill passed the Lok Sabha in 2010 but lapsed in the Rajya Sabha and has never been revived. In the years since, repeated calls from courts, commissions and civil society for such legislation have remained unanswered.

Neither reform would eliminate custodial violence overnight. But both would signal a recognition that torture and custodial abuse are systemic problems requiring structural solutions rather than episodic responses.

Akash Delison entered police custody alive. Within forty-eight hours, he was dead. But the deeper question extends beyond a single case. The Constitution promises that the State cannot deprive a person of life or liberty except through lawful procedure. That promise loses meaning if it does not apply equally within police stations.

Custodial deaths confront India's legal system with a fundamental test. Either constitutional safeguards are enforced with seriousness and transparency, or they risk becoming guarantees that vanish precisely where they are most needed.

For Akash Delison, the Constitution arrived too late. For the next person who enters a lock-up tonight, the answer has yet to be written.

Author is a law student at University of Allahabad. Views are personal.