Indian police and people with access to political power usually pick people up on saturday or sunday when the courts are closed. This is the usual trick. A day in an Indian police lockup is not something you can stomach easily. If they are looking for you on a friday, it means political power and possible threats, beatings, forced confessions; hide and move away with family immediately until monday! If they are looking for you on other days, relax.
Your reply is yet another "Tu quoque America!" post that is becoming far too predictable and common on HN. The US is not the subject of the OP's comment.
Clarification: My comment probably appears to be a knee-jerk defense of America. I'm a libertarian, and, as an example, I'm a huge fan of Radley Balko and his expose of no-knock raids and other many government civil liberty abominations, just so you know where I stand. I also believe the DEA should be shut down, and that many people in the justice department should probably be in prison. But my point is that power corrupts, universally. It is not isolated, obviously, to the US.
I disagree. He's not saying that this somehow excuses the Indian behavior, or that Americans are worse. He's simply pointing out that this is a widespread problem. I personally found the post interesting and am glad he posted it. It is definitely not a "tu quoque" as you say.
The difference being, in the US the police are only likely to give you a hard time if they think you are guilty. In India, they are only likely to do so if someone bribed them to.
Which is not any better for the detainee, because he still gets treated badly by someone who thinks he's entitled to doing so.
A police officer is not qualified to determine who is guilty. Only to determine who is suspect. All suspects are to be treated alike. And of course, we can all come up with blatantly obvious cases where someone is guilty of some heinous crime. The point is that there are many more cases where the crime is less noteworthy, the guilt is less obvious and someone still gets treated badly before his guilt has been established.
