RISING RIOT INCIDENTS

Incidents of riots registered in India increased by around 12.2 per cent in 2020 compared to the previous year, shows the National Crime Records Bureau's (NCRB) latest Crime In India, 2020 report. And, the number of people who fell victim to such riots also saw an upsurge by 5.8 per cent.

In 2020, 71,107 cases of offences against public tranquility were registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and rioting accounted for 72.6 per cent of these cases. The total cases of offences against public tranquility have also increased by 12.4 per cent in 2020 than the previous year (63,262 cases in 2019).

India witnessed 51,606 rioting cases in 2020, while the number of riot victims stood at 61,907. This means that the country saw 141 cases and 169 victims of rioting every day in 2020. Of these, Bihar topped the list with 9,422 cases, followed by Maharashtra (9,157) and Uttar Pradesh (6,126).

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has several times claimed that in his tenure the state has been riot free, the last time, on September 19, 2021, while releasing his state's report card. But UP saw a 7.2 per cent surge in rioting cases since 2019 (approximately 16 cases every day), according to the NCRB report.

India had been seeing a continuous decline in riots cases from 2017 to 2019, but it increased by 12.2 per cent in 2020 (51,606) although it still was less than the cases in 2016 (61,974).