As many as 82,190 Muslim prisoners, including 59,550 undertrials, are lodged in different jails across the country according to data available until the end of 2014, Rajya Sabha was told today.

Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary said that as per data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there were 82,190 Muslim prisoners of which 21,550 were convicts, 59,550 were undertrials, 658 detainees and 432 other prisoners by the end of 2014.

"As per the data compiled by the NCRB for 2014, the percentage of convicted Muslim prisoners to the total convicted prisoners was 16.38, while the percentage of Muslim undertrial prisoners to the total undertrial prisoners was 21.05 per cent," he said in his reply to a written question.

Last year, the NCRB data had revealed that Muslims make up for over 21 per cent of all undertrials even as their population is almost 14 per cent of India's total population.

In fact, an analysis of the NCRB data of states with significant Muslim population revealed that in some places, the ratio of the percentage of Muslim undertrials to that of their population is nearly 2:1.

The Parliament question on Muslim prisoners came two days after a special court in Mumbai dropped all charges against nine Muslim youths in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case due to lack of evidence against them. All of them had spent a minimum five years in jail after they were arrested.

The nine accused, suspected to have links with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were initially arrested in the case and chargesheeted by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad. One of them died while the case was pending.

Malegaon, a sensitive Muslim-dominated town around 300 km northeast of Mumbai, was rocked by another blast on September 29, 2008, allegedly masterminded by certain Hindu fundamentalist groups.