In the last 10 years, the majority (69 per cent) of 1,004 deaths in police custody have been attributed to either illness and natural causes (40 per cent), or to alleged suicide (29 per cent), in National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.
Details on whether deaths by illness are because of a prolonged or sudden illness, or whether hospitalisation is linked to conditions/circumstances in custody, or owing to assault in custody, are not provided in the NCRB’s annual Crime in India (CII) reports, the key central government database.
More deaths by suicide in police custody have been reported over the