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Witness History: The Bhagalpur blindings

Documentaries

The Bhagalpur blindings

07/11/2019 GMT

BBC World Service - Witness History, The Bhagalpur blindings

How Indian police tortured petty criminals, blinding them permanently

How Indian police took the law into their own hands and tortured petty criminals, blinding them permanently. The so-called Bhagalpur blindings came to public attention in 1980.

WARNING: This programme contains distressing descriptions of violent torture from the beginning.

In 1980 police in a small city in the Indian state of Bihar were revealed to be torturing petty criminals. Iknoor Kaur has been talking to several people with first-hand experience of the disturbing events that came to be known as the Bhagalpur blindings. Ram Kumar Mishra was the lawyer who represented the victims, Amitabh Parashar made a documentary film about what happened, and Umesh Yadav was one of the victims who lost his sight at the hands of the police.

(Photo: Victim of the Bhagalpur blindings, Umesh Yadav. Copyright: Amitabh Parashar)

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