Bhavnagar Police Thrashing on Camera: When Vigilance Becomes Vigilante Justice

A murder accused in Gujarat's Bhavnagar was tied with ropes, dragged through the streets, and beaten with batons by police during a crime scene reconstruction — all captured on video and circulated widely on social media. Inspector D.P. Unadkat of Neelam Bagh police station defended the brutality as a "rarest of rare case" requiring the force to "go the extra mile" after the accused's assault on his live-in partner, Kajal Baraiya, in full public view had "tarnished the image of the police."

The incident, and the explicit rationale offered for it, lays bare a crisis that sits at the heart of Indian policing: an accountability vacuum decades in the making. ## What Happened in Bhavnagar Faizal Lakhani allegedly beat Kajal Baraiya and a man named Ravi with whom she had developed a relationship. Kajal succumbed to her injuries at Sir Takhtasinhji General Hospital; Lakhani was arrested on September 4, 2026. A man with prior charges of robbery and other serious offences, Lakhani had returned from jail to find his partner with Ravi — the confrontation followed. What followed his arrest was equally disturbing. Police reconstructed the crime scene at the same bus stand where Kajal was killed. There, instead of a procedural recreation meant to gather evidence, officers produced the public flogging captured on camera.

The stated justification — that the original assault had eroded public faith in the force, and that a "strong message" was required — recast the police not as investigators bound by law, but as aggrieved parties settling a reputational score. ## The Legal Framework: What the Police Were Actually Required to Do Indian policing operates under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) and the Indian Penal Code, which together define the boundaries of lawful force during arrest and detention. Section 49 of the CrPC explicitly states that a police officer shall use no greater force than is reasonably necessary to effect an arrest. Custodial violence — whether during arrest, interrogation, or post-arrest "reconstruction" — is independently criminalised under Sections 330 and 331 of the IPC, which penalise voluntary causing of hurt or grievous hurt to extort confession or information.

Crucially, the Gujarat High Court has already taken suo motu cognisance of a related pattern — police officers in Surat beating accused persons in public — and the amicus curiae before that court noted that the State Home Department had issued a circular on May 7 restricting such conduct. The Bhavnagar incident suggests that circular has not travelled far from the printer's tray.

Key statutory and constitutional anchors violated or tested by such incidents: - Article 21 of the Constitution — guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, held by the Supreme Court to include the right to live with human dignity and freedom from custodial torture - Section 49, CrPC — permits only the minimum force necessary for arrest, with all excesses punishable under the relevant IPC sections - Section 330/331, IPC — criminalises voluntary hurt or grievous hurt inflicted by public servants to extort confession or information - Prakash Singh Case (2006) — the Supreme Court's landmark directions on police reforms, which mandated fixed tenures, separation of law and order from investigation, and independent complaint mechanisms - Police (Amendment) Act 2006 — created Police Establishment Boards and the Delhi Police Complaints Authority based on the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee's recommendations, providing a template for external oversight

How We Got Here: A Half-Built Reform Architecture The Bhavnagar incident did not occur in a vacuum. It is a direct consequence of India's decades-long failure to implement the police reforms that successive commissions have recommended. The National Police Commission under Dharam Vira (1977-79) laid out the first comprehensive blueprint, recommending a fixed two-year tenure for officers, insulation from political interference, and statutory complaint authorities at the district and state levels. Two decades later, the Khosla Committee (1972) reinforced these by proposing State-level Police Complaints Authorities with the power to recommend departmental and criminal action. The most recent — and most ambitious — blueprint came from the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee on Police Reforms (2005), which expanded the reform agenda to include separation of investigation from law-and-order functions, a ceiling on the tenure of the Director General of Police, and a comprehensive complaints architecture. Its recommendations materialised in the Police (Amendment) Act 2006, which created Police Establishment Boards and Complaints Authorities. Yet the gap between law and practice persists. Over a dozen States had not even issued the required notification establishing their State Security Commissions and Police Complaints Authorities two decades after the Supreme Court's directions. The Prakash Singh judgement was a direction, not a statute — and directions, unlike legislation, can be quietly ignored.

When "Image Correction" Becomes the Operating Logic The Inspector's defence — that the assault on Kajal had "tarnished" the force's image and that a "strong message" was needed — exposes the deeper pathology. The police are not a self-interested party; they are a constitutionally mandated organ of the state. Their legitimacy is not a reputational commodity to be restored through street theatre. When officers treat custodial violence as a public relations exercise, they have already collapsed the distinction between the state and its functionaries. This is where Directive Principles of State Policy intersect with hard law. Article 39A directs the state to ensure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity, and to provide free legal aid. Custodial violence inverts both — it converts the police from protectors into perpetrators, and turns the criminal process from a search for truth into a spectacle of punishment preceding conviction.

What Must Change Now The Bhavnagar video is not merely an embarrassment to be managed; it is evidence of a specific criminal offence that must be investigated and prosecuted.