New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday said that Gujarat and Maharashtra have registered the maximum number of custodial deaths in the last five years. Informing this in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said that 687 people died in police custody in various parts of the country from April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2023.
Government statistics tabled in Parliament revealed that 81 deaths were reported in Gujarat in police custody, whereas 80 such deaths took place in Maharashtra during the same period. He said that 13 deaths took place in Gujarat in 2018-19, 12 deaths in 2019-20, 17 deaths in 2020-21, 24 deaths in 2021-22 and 15 deaths reported in 2022-23.
Similarly, 11 deaths took place in Maharashtra in 2018-19, three deaths were reported in 2019-20, 13 deaths were reported in 2020-21, 30 took place in 2021-22 and 23 deaths occurred in 2022-23. Rai was replying to a written query in the Lok Sabha. The minister further said there were 50 police custodial deaths in Madhya Pradesh, 47 in Bihar, 41 in Uttar Pradesh and 36 in Tamil Nadu. Citing the data provided by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Rai said a total of 164 deaths in police custody were reported in 2022-23, 175 in 2021-22, 100 in 2020-21, 112 in 2019-20 and 136 in 2018-2019.
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“NHRC does not maintain the data about custodial death of persons belonging to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Minority Community separately,” said Rai in his reply. Meanwhile, in another reply to the modernisation of police forces in the States, Rai said that the revamping of police forces is an ongoing and continuous process. “Although ‘police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India, the efforts of the States for equipping and modernising their police forces has been supplemented under the scheme of assistance to States & UTs for modernisation of police,” said Rai.
Significantly, the budgetary allocation has also come down in the last few years. Statistics revealed that Rs 781.12 crore in 2019-20 and depending on the utilisation of the amount the financial assistance in the subsequent years has come down. In 2020-21, a sum of Rs 103.25 crore was released, and in 2021-22 an amount of Rs 158.56 crore has been released. The amount released in 2022-23 was Rs 36.69 crore till date.
