Some thing i learned today. India has a handcuff ban except in extreme circumstances. This is why we see cops leading even the most hardened of criminals by the hand if they need to be taken any where.
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This stems from its past use during the emergency period and colonial times.
“Handcuffing is prima facie inhuman and, therefore, unreasonable, is over-harsh and at the first flush, arbitrary. Absent fair procedure and objective monitoring, to inflict `irons’ is to resort to zoological strategies repugnant to Art. 21. Thus, we must critically examine the justification offered by the State for this mode of restraint. Surely, the competing claims of securing the prisoner from fleeing and protecting his personality from barbarity have to be harmonized. To prevent the escape of an under trial is in public interest, reasonable, just and cannot, by itself, be castigated. But to bind a man hand-and- foot fetter his limbs with hoops of steel, shuffle him along in the streets and stand him for hours in the courts is to torture him, defile his dignity, vulgarise society and foul the soul of our constitutional culture.”
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This stems from its past use during the emergency period and colonial times.
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