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NEW DELHI — In the first six months of 2018, 100 hate crimes have allegedly been committed against people from marginalised groups including dalits, Adivasis, members of racial or religious minority groups and transgender people in India, said Amnesty International India on Tuesday.
Amnesty’s interactive website, ‘Halt the Hate’, documents hate crimes reported in mainstream English and Hindi media. However, there are so many incidents that are never reported in the media.
Amnesty International says that out of the 100 hate crimes, reported in the first six months of 2018, 18 have been committed in Uttar Pradesh, followed by Gujarat with 13 such cases. Rajasthan witnessed eight, and Tamil Nadu and Bihar witnessed seven cases each.
The report comes amid the recent horrific incident of a 32-year-old techie being allegedly beaten to death by a mob in Karnataka’s Bidar district on July 13 over child-lifting rumours. Three others were severely injured in the attack and are currently undergoing treatment.
The Amnesty report said that in the first six months of 2018, a total of 67 hate crimes against Dalits and 22 against Muslims were reported across the country.
The report showed that cow-related violence and honour killings were among the most common reasons behind the hate crimes. It further said that in Uttar Pradesh, the western part of the state witnessed the most number of incidents of hate crimes triggered over religion and caste.
According to media reports, more than 20 people have been lynched across the country over rumours of child abduction in the last two months.
Amnesty website documents these crimes from September 2015, when Mohammad Akhlaq was killed in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, for allegedly killing a cow. Since that day, a disturbing 603 incidents have been recorded on the website. Cow-related violence and so-called ‘honour’ killings were among the most common instances of alleged hate crimes.
Previously, in 2016 and 2017, Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number of alleged hate crimes. This time too, the highest number was from Uttar Pradesh. Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Bihar also recorded a high number of incidents.
