Over 75 pc UAPA cases in 2022 from J&K, Manipur, Assam, UP; Bengal had 25 pc sedition cases: NCRB

STATE TIMES NEWS

New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Assam and Uttar Pradesh together registered over three-fourth of all UAPA cases in India in 2022, while one-fourth of sedition cases were registered in West Bengal alone, according to the latest NCRB data on ‘Offences against the State’.
Altogether 20 cases of sedition under the Indian Penal Code section 124A were lodged across India in 2022 while 1,005 were registered under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which functions under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, showed in its annual crime report.
Notably, sedition cases have come down since 2020 while those lodged under the UAPA saw a rise in the last three years, according to the data.
In 2021, 76 cases of sedition and 814 cases of UAPA were lodged in the country, while in 2020 the figures for the same were logged at 73 and 796, official data from corresponding years showed.
Among states and Union Territories, the maximum number of UAPA cases were lodged in Jammu and Kashmir (371) followed by Manipur (167), Assam (133) and Uttar Pradesh (101).
The maximum cases of sedition were lodged in West Bengal (5) followed by 3 each in Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh, the NCRB report showed. In 2022 as well as 2021, 55 FIRs were registered under the Official Secrets Act while 39 such offences were registered in 2020, according to the NCRB, which is tasked with the collection and analysis of crime data.
A total of 5,610 cases were registered in 2022 as compared to 5,164 cases in 2021, and 5,613 in 2020 under the wider category of ‘Offences against the State’.
Of the total cases in 2022, 78.5 per cent were registered under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act (4,403 cases) followed by 1,005 (17.9 per cent) cases under the UAPA, the NCRB stated in its report.
The crime rate per lakh population in this category was logged at 0.4 while the charge sheeting rate was 80.8 last year, it showed.
The maximum cases under the wider category of ‘Offences against the State’ were registered in Uttar Pradesh (2,231) followed by Tamil Nadu (634), Jammu and Kashmir (417), Assam (298) and Kerala (297). The national capital Delhi registered 22 such cases in 2022, according to the report.
Across the country in 2022, 48 cases were lodged under IPC sections 121-123, 79 under ‘Imputation, assertions prejudicial to national integration’ and 4,524 under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, it showed.
In 2021, a total of 73 cases were lodged under the IPC sections 121-123 and 57 under ‘Imputation, assertions prejudicial to national integration’ and 4,089 under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, while the figures for the same in 2020 were 99, 82 and 4,524, respectively, the NCRB data showed.
In a note of caution about the annual report, the NCRB said the primary presumption that the upward swing in police data indicates an increase in crime and thus a reflection of the ineffectiveness of the police is fallacious.
“‘Rise in crime’ and ‘increase in registration of crime by police’ are clearly two different things, a fact which requires better understanding. Thus an oft-repeated expectation from certain quarters that an effective police administration will be able to keep the crime figures low is misplaced,” it stated.
Increase in crime numbers in a state police data may in fact be on account of certain citizen-centric police initiatives, like launching of e-FIR facility or women helpdesks,” it said.
“The increase or decrease in crime numbers, however, does call for a professional investigation of underlying factors pertaining to the local communities to suitably address the pertinent issues,” it added.