The spike is because of communal riots in Delhi where police filed 520 cases, out of total 857 cases nationally
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — The year 2020 saw a 96% increase in the cases of communal riots in the country owing to the large-scale anti-Muslim violence that shook parts of the national capital in Feberuary last year, according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Wednesday.
The overall increase in riots was 50% which includes riots during farmer protests (38%) that began in the latter half of 2020 as well as riots during public protests (33%).
The report cites nation-wide coronavirus lockdown imposed by the central government in March 2020 as the reason for the dip in the number of cases registered for crimes against women, children and senior citizens, theft, burglary, robbery and dacoity, among others. Murder cases increased marginally by 1%.
The NCRB recorded 438 communal riot cases in 2019 while in 2020 it went up to 857. The spike is because of Delhi riots. Delhi Police alone filed 520 communal cases during 2020. More than 50 people, majority of them Muslims, were killed in the violence that rocked the national capital in the last week of February 2020.
The data shows that Delhi was followed by Bihar where 117 cases of communal violence were recorded. Haryana and Jharkhand reported 51communal cases each followed by Maharashtra (26) and Gujarat (23).
Notably, no communal violence case was recorded in Uttar Pradesh in 2020, the NCRB report revealed. But UP is the only state that saw an increase in the number of cases (2,217) registered for offences against the state. In 2019, 2,107 such cases were recorded in the state.
NCRB compiles the data provided by the police of states and Union territories and does not include incidents overlooked by police.
The cases of ‘Promoting Enmity Between Groups’ reported across the country in 2020 was 1,804, while cases recorded under this category for 2019 was 1,058. Tamil Nadu recorded the highest such cases (303) followed by Uttar Pradesh (243).
The UAPA (anti-terror law) cases registered in 2020 also saw a dip compared to 2019. A total of 287 cases were registered in Jammu and Kashmir followed by Manipur (169) and then Jharkhand (86).
