A key principle of modern jurisprudence in every civilised and democratic country is that the benefit of doubt should be accorded to the accused to avoid punishing the innocent. However, in the name of countering terrorism, modern democratic states are compromising on this principle. Dr Mohammad Haneef’s 27-day detention was justified by the Australian authorities on the grounds that it was better to ‘play safe than sorry’ in the fight against terrorism. But such an approach ends up mortgaging the fundamental rights of citizens to police functionaries who have come to assume a crucial role in countries across the world after September 11, 2001.

The fight against terror has led to the police force being vested with extraordinary power of detention without trial and on the basis of mere suspicion. Tony Blair’s efforts — carried on by his successor Gordon Brown — to extend the limit of 28 days as ‘pretrial detention’ led to a bitter debate in the Britain’s Parliament recently. The question was, can an unaccountable police force be trusted to detain a suspect without the right to trial? Most of Britain’s MPs believed that the answer is a big no.

In India, the police have long conducted themselves with impunity and little regard for the liberties of citizens, even in normal times. This in fact prompted the Supreme Court on July 30, 2007, to direct the Central, states and Union Territories to set up committees to investigate all police encounter deaths over the last decade. That Indian security and police forces have indulged in the ‘extra-judicial killing of innocent citizens’ is no secret — the latest case that came into public focus being the ‘fake encounter’ of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and the murder of his wife.

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