Blood on My Hands

'You are here to catch militants, so you have to catch militants. This is your business. You can't say, I have a budget of only 30,000, so I can't catch them.'

This anonymous confession by an army officer splits wide open the anatomy of staged encounters in India's northeast, and explains how awards and citations are linked to a body count. Speaking to investigative journalist and conflict specialist Kishalay Bhattacharjee, the confessor tells of the toll this brutality has taken on him.An essay by Bhattacharjee and a postscript that analyses the hidden policy of extra-judicial killings and how it threatens India's democracy contextualize this searing confession. An explosive document on institutionalized human rights abuse.