The National Human Rights Commission’s (NHRC) directive to the Uttar Pradesh government to pay Rs 10 lakh to the family of a 36-year-old man who died in police custody in 2021 marks a welcome reaffirmation of the inviolability of human dignity and the imperative of accountability. That this order arrives against a backdrop of systemic failures makes it all the more resonant: According to official data, between 2020 and 2022, over 4,400 custodial (judicial and police) deaths were recorded nationwide, with UP accounting for 952 of them. In September 2023, the Gujarat State Law Commission flagged increasing incidents of custodial death in the........

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