Mumbai: In 254 religious identity-based hate crimes reported in India between January 1, 2009, and October 29, 2018, at least 91 persons were killed and 579 were injured, according to a new FactChecker.in database, released on October 30, 2018. About 90% (229) of these attacks were reported after May 2014, when the current Bharatiya Janata Party-led government assumed power nationally.
The Citizen’s Religious Hate-Crime Watch (Hate Crime Watch, in short) records that Muslims, who comprise 14% of India’s population, were the victims in 62% of cases (158 of 254) and Christians, 2% of the population, in 14% (35) of cases.
Hindus, constituting the majority or 80% of the population, were victims in 10% (25) of the cases.
Sikhs (1.7% of population) were victims in 2% or four recorded cases.
In 20 cases, the crimes were communal clashes prima facie motivated by a religious bias, where the victims’ religious identity could not be clearly ascertained from the news reports.
Of the 172 cases in which the religion of the alleged perpetrator is known, 86% cases involved Hindus (148 cases), Hate Crime Watch shows. In 13% or 22 cases, the attackers were Muslim. In 82 cases, the religion of the attacker was not known.
Hate Crime Watch is a multi-organisation effort steered by FactChecker.in, in collaboration with Aman Biradari, a people’s campaign for secularism, justice and compassion based in New Delhi, and NewsClick.in, a public-interest journalism non-profit. On the advisory board of the project are Ajit Prakash Shah, chairperson of the 20th Law Commission of India and former chief justice of the Delhi High Court; Chaman Lal, Padma Shri, former director general of police and former special rapporteur of the National Human Rights Commission; Maja Daruwala, senior advisor to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative; and Mrinal Satish, professor at the National Law University, Delhi, and executive director of the university’s Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance.
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