Udupi, Jun 27 (The Hindu): Chairman of the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) S.R. Nayak said on Friday that the commission would hold Superintendents of Police responsible for custodial torture.

Addressing presspersons here, Nayak said that SHRC would not hesitate to prosecute Superintendents of Police for custodial torture. The commission had informed the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police about its intent.

He said that there were many complaints of people being beaten and tortured in jails in the name of investigation. Many police stations were detaining persons beyond 24 hours, which was illegal.

He said that the commission, which was set up in 2007, had received 10,000 complaints, of which 4,000 cases had been disposed of. It had received 125 complaints in Udupi district, of which it had disposed of 58 cases.

The commission had initiated suo motu action in nearly 1,000 cases of public interest going by press reports.

These included various issues such as civic amenities, water problem, deforestation, ragging and food poisoning.

The commission was proactive while dealing with issues related to social evils such as untouchability.

To a query, he said that whenever an inquiry was held into any issue by the officials of the commission, it got an impartial report.

But most of the inquiries conducted by the government officials and departments normally justified the acts of the administration or the departments, Nayak claimed.