New Delhi: The NCRB’s latest data under “Crime in India-2020” has revealed that the year continues to be dominated by the cases registered against those who committed “crime against the state”, as such FIRs doubled in Punjab to 70 from 35 in 2019 with Uttar Pradesh registering the highest 2,217 cases in the country.
Most cases filed during CAA protests in uttar Pradesh
- FIRs under ‘crime against state’ doubled in Punjab to 70 from 35 in 2019 with UP registering the highest 2,217 cases in the country
- In Uttar Pradesh, 2,106 of 2,217 cases came under the Damage to Public Property Act
- Most of the cases were filed when protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act were taking place in UP
Even as there is a decline of 26.7 per cent in the registration of such cases from 7,656 in 2019 to 5,613, a whopping 2,217 FIRs were registered for ‘crime against state’ in UP of which 95 per cent (2,106) of the cases came under the Damage to Public Property Act. Such FIRs were 2,107. Most of these cases were registered when protests against the CAA were taking place in the state.
The UP Police also registered 111 cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The other states to register high number of cases under the UAPA were J&K (287), Manipur (169), Jharkhand (86) and Assam (76).
According to the NCRB data, of the total 5,613 FIRs for “crime against state”, 80.6 per cent (4,524 cases) were registered under the Damage to Public Property Act, followed by 14.2 per cent (796 cases) registered under the UAPA.
According to the NCRB, any act that disturbs public tranquillity, national integration and public order is an offence against the state.
Besides, the total number of crimes under both the IPC and Special & Local Laws (SLL) across the country for all states and UTs in 2020 went up to 66,01,285, which was a 28 per cent increase from 51,56,158 in 2019 and a 30 per cent increase from 50,74,635 in 2018. The crime rate registered per lakh of the population increased from 385.5 in 2019 to 487.8 in 2020.
Meanwhile, the NCRB data for 2020 also showed an increasing trend in the number of suicides than in 2019 with the share of such victims among farm labourers increased by 18 per cent.
According to the data, Maharashtra continues to be at the top of the chart with 4,006 suicides in the farm sector, followed by Karnataka (2,016), Andhra Pradesh (889), Madhya Pradesh (735) and Chhattisgarh (537) in the total of 10,677 suicides in 2020. These states were also among the top four in 2019.
The NCRB said, “This data depicts only profession of persons who have committed suicide and has no linkage whatsoever regarding cause of suicide.” Out of 5,579 farmer/cultivator suicides last year, a total of 5,335 were males and 244 were females.