NCRB says 54 political murders were reported in the country in 2018

West Bengal reported the maximum number of political murders in 2018, says a report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The number of murders due to “political reason” in West Bengal stood at 12, followed by nine in Bihar and seven in Maharashtra. In all, 54 political murders were reported in the country in 2018. In 2017, the number of such cases stood at 98.

The data are not in consonance with an advisory sent by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to the West Bengal government last year. In an advisory sent on June 15, the MHA had said political violence in West Bengal had claimed 96 lives and that the “unabated violence” over the years was a matter of deep concern.

The NCRB said the clarifications on data were pending from West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Sikkim, hence data might be treated as provisional.

Casteism the motive

As per the report, “casteism” was the motive of murder in 36 cases, with maximum such cases reported from Uttar Pradesh — 13 and Karnataka 9. As many as 26 people were killed due to religious and communal reasons and the highest number of such killings was reported from Bihar (12), according to the NCRB report.

Eighteen persons were killed and 277 injured in police firing and police lathicharge in 2018, the figure stood at 34 and 492 in the year 2017. Those killed in police encounters stood at 36 and 35 such deaths were recorded in Jammu and Kashmir. In all, 89 cases of human rights violations were reported against the police and 40 policemen were arrested.

As many as 10,133 cases of unlawful assembly and 57,828 incidents of rioting were reported in 2018.

Agrarian causes led to 2008 such riots while 1,495 such incidents occurred due to political reasons and 512 owing to religious reasons.