New Delhi: Junior home minister Hansraj Ahir on Tuesday said 47,338 cases were registered in 2016 under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, a 2,000-plus rise over the year before, with disturbing statistics hidden in the details that pointed to a worrying trend.
A close examination of figures provided by the National Crime Records Bureau for 2016 by this newspaper revealed that Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 10,426 cases against Scheduled Castes, followed by Bihar (5,701), Rajasthan (5,134) and Madhya Pradesh (4,922).
As for crimes against tribal people, Madhya Pradesh finished a dubious first with the maximum number of cases (1,823), followed by Rajasthan (1,195) and Chhattisgarh (402).
Madhya Pradesh accounted for most of the deaths in the violence during Monday’s Bharat Bandh, followed by Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Minister Ahir told the Lok Sabha that according to the NCRB figures for 2016, crimes against SCs accounted for 40,774 of the cases, with the remaining 6,564 registered for crimes against STs.
He said the conviction rate in the crimes against Dalits was one in four, while it was one in five in cases of crimes against tribal people.
Chargesheets had been filed in 78.3 per cent cases of crimes against SCs and 25.8 per cent had ended in convictions.
He said chargesheets had been filed in 81.3 per cent cases of crimes against STs and the conviction rate was 20.8 per cent.
The year 2015 recorded over 44,800 cases of crimes against SCs and STs – 38,564 cases for crimes against Dalits and 6,275 for crimes against tribal victims.
The corresponding figures for 2014 were 40,300 and 6,826.
In 2012, the figures were 33,593 and 5,920, while the corresponding stats for 2013 were 39,346 and 6,768.
Crimes against Dalits in Uttar Pradesh have gone up in the last three years, with 8,066 cases registered in 2014 and 8,357 in 2015.
Madhya Pradesh, too, has seen a rise in the number of crimes against SCs – from 3,294 in 2014 and 3,546 in 2015.
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