Much to the embarrassment of the Uttar Pradesh Police, the record tables in Parliament by the Central Government points that the State has topped the list of custodial deaths in the country in the last two years.
As many as 955 custodial deaths took place in Uttar Pradesh during 2020-22, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday. Uttar Pradesh recorded 451 custodial deaths in 2020-21 and the number rose to 501 in 2021-22, as per the Government data.
Besides custodial deaths, Jammu and Kashmir has seen a nine-fold increase in police encounters in 2021-22 — the highest in the country — followed by Assam where encounters rose by over four times as compared to the previous year.
Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai, while presenting the data in response to a question raised by Indian Union Muslim League MP Abdussamad Samdani, explained these figures. Rai informed the House on Tuesday that there were 82 cases of police encounters in 2020-21 in the country and the number went up to 151 in 2021-22.
Meanwhile, as per Government data, while there were 1,940 custodial deaths in the country in 2020-21, the number rose to 2,544 in 2021-22. West Bengal has seen a substantial increase in custodial death cases, from 185 cases in 2020-21 to 257 in 2021-22.
Bihar registered 159 custodial death cases in 2020-21 and the number rose to 237 in 2021-22. Madhya Pradesh recorded 163 such cases in 2020-21 and the number rose to 201 the next year.