In Custody: Law, Impunity and Prisoner Abuse in South Asia

This is a volume that deals with the professed and actual commitment to custodial justice among South Asian States. Focusing on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, all of which have seen colonial rule, it argues that the discourse on rights is a negotiated space and that the colonial pasts of these countries have put systems in place that affirm norms while enabling their breach at the same time. Throwing light on historical factors and taking into consideration contemporary aspects, it reviews constitutions, statutes and mechanism of custodial justice in the countries. There are case studies and interviews that bring out the many layers of impunity in operation. It examines custodial justice, linking it to the working of the judiciary, the Penal code and the law of evidence, torture, accountability, terror and counter terror and foreign occupation as in Afghanistan in the past.