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. Similarly, Maharashtra registered 143 custodial death cases in 2020-21 and the number went up to 197 in 2021-22.
According to the data tabled in the Lok Sabha, there were just five police encounters in Jammu and Kashmir in 2020-21 and such cases increased to 45 in 2021-22.
Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh had 16 and six encounters in 2020-21 respectively, and the numbers have come down in 2021-22 with the former registering 11 cases and the latter recording just two such cases, according to the data.
There were just four police encounters in Assam in 2020-21 and the number went up to 18 in 2021-22, the data says.
Among other states, there were 24 police encounters in Chhattisgarh in 2020-21 and the number has risen to 30 in 2021-22. Similarly, in Jharkhand, there were five encounters in 2020-21 and number has increased to nine in 2021-22, the data shows.