The opening scene of the 2009 film Slumdog Millionaire shows the Indian police torturing Jamal, the protagonist of the film, who was suspected of cheating on a game show. This powerful scene is a reminder of the routine use of torture in Indian police stations. Decades of reports by civil liberty and democratic rights groups have documented the torture, custodial deaths, and extrajudicial killings that continue in contemporary India despite the formal legal ...