India is a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; its constitution also accords recognition to fundamental human rights and civil liberties. However, there are violations of human rights that take place at the hands of police, including custodial rape, custodial death, use of third-degree methods to extract confessions, and excesses committed during searches. Violations of human rights occur most frequently in cases involving people belonging to poor and disadvantaged groups. Allegations of police violence are most commonly leveled in the Punjab and Kashmir, areas which are affected by terrorist violence. Police operating in those areas are given wide powers of arrest, search without warrant, and shoot-to-kill; these powers are sometimes exceeded. When a government uses draconian measures to suppress terrorism, it runs the risk of depriving citizens of human rights and losing its own legitimacy and base of public support.