UP, Chhattisgarh, J&K account for 3/4th of all the Police Firing Incidents between 2009 & 2013
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
April 14, 2015
We looked at the number of incidents of Police Firing in the country and details of casualities in the previous article. Here is an analysis of incidents of Police Firing in various states from 2009 to 2013.
Incidents of Police Firing
The incidents of Police Firing are not consistent throughout the country. Few states have greater incidence of Police Firing. From 2009 to 2013, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir alone account for more than 74% of the total incidents of Police Firing in the country. It was as high as 84% in 2010. All the other states put together had less than 26% of the firing incidents. The protests against land acquisition in Uttar Pradesh, Maoist problem in Chhattisgarh and the internal strife in Jammu & Kashmir could be the reasons for the high incidence of Police Firing in those states. But 3/4 of the Police Firing incidents in just 3 states is very revealing. There have been more than 600 incidents of police firing in Uttar Pradesh in 2009 and in Jammu Kashmir on 2010. On average, there has been more than one incident of police firing every day in Uttar Pradesh in 2009 & 2010.
Civilian Deaths
There is no visible correlation between the number of incidents of Police Firing & the corresponding number of Civilian deaths in various states. Though Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh & Jammu Kashmir account for close to 75% of the total Police Firing incidents, the number of civilian deaths in these three states is only 47% of the total civilian deaths.
The ratio of number of civilian deaths to number of incidents of police firing reveals some interesting trends. For instance, while Bihar had only 13 incidents of firing in the 5 years, it resulted in 17 deaths with more than one civilian death on an average per firing. Chhattisgarh had 613 incidents of firing that resulted in only 39 deaths. Interestingly, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh & Jammu Kashmir do not figure in the top five. Though states like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra & West Bengal had relatively lesser number of incidents of firing, the ratio is higher for these states.
Policemen Deaths
It is equally important to look at the death of Policemen in these incidents of firing. Almost 39% of the total deaths in these incidents are that of the Policemen. From 2009 to 2013, 447 policemen lost their lives in police firing incidents. More than 1/3 of these policemen are from Chhattisgarh. 154 Policemen lost their lives in Chhattisgarh in these 5 years. It is indicative of the fact that most of the firing incidents in Chhattisgarh involved the Maoists. The second highest number of Police casualities was in Maharashtra. 72 policemen lost their lives in Maharashtra out of which 53 were killed just in 2009. Most of these deaths were in anti Maoist operations. 60 Policemen were killed in Jammu & Kashmir in these 5 years. Bihar is in the first place in both the ratio of civilian & policemen deaths compared to the number of incidents of Police firing. This indicates the serious nature of firing incidents in Bihar.
Data Source: Crimes in India, National Crime Records Bureau