At least 18 million children live or work on the streets of India, laboring as porters in railway stations or bus terminals, as ragpickers, and as vendors of food, tea, or handmade articles. Based on the findings of this study, these street children are routinely subjected to arbitrary and illegal detention, torture, and extortion, and on occasion, murder at the hands of police. This finding is based on investigations conducted in India during February and March 1995 and December and January 1995-96. In addition to speaking with more than 100 children, Human Rights Watch representatives interviewed representatives of nongovernmental organizations, social workers, human rights activists, human rights lawyers, and others who work with street children. Of the 100 children interviewed, 60 complained of police abuse in the form of detentions, beatings, extortion, or verbal abuse. All the children interviewed reported a fear of the police. This report calls on the Indian government to put an immediate end to police violence against street children, to prosecute the police involved, to implement the recommendations of the National Police Commission, to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and to invite the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to India to investigate police mistreatment of street children. Appended relevant laws, rules, and conventions