By Abu Zaeem
NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 7—India has witnessed sharp increase in alleged hate crimes, recording as many as 181 incidents in the first half of 2019.
This has been revealed by Amnesty International India report 2019.
The hate crimes, according to the report running into 11-pages posted on its hate-tracker website “Halt the Hate”, include assault, rape and murder (mob-lynching) against weaker sections, particularly Muslims and Dalits.
According to the report, this is the steepest rise in hate crime number since 2016. Uttar Pradesh, says the report, is on the top reporting the highest number of hate crimes in the country.
The report notes that India has recorded the alarming spurt in hate crimes, including mob lynching of Muslims, Dalits and weaker sections ever since BJP came to power at the Centre and in several states.
Amnesty’s report during the period between September 2015 and June 2019, recorded 902 incidents of alleged hate crimes in India. In January–June 2019 alone, it recorded as many as 181 alleged hate crime incidents– a number close to previous three years’ annual counts, with 218 incidents in whole of 2018, 212 incidents in 2017 and 240 incidents in 2016.
Majority of Hate-Crime Victims in 2019 Were Dalits
According to the report, “between January and June 2019, over two-third of the victims suffered harm on account of their Dalit identity followed by their Muslim (40), Adivasi (12), Christian (4) and their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity (6). Some of the alleged hate crimes against Dalits related to denial of access to public property such as roads, water, crematorium, schools etc. Cow-vigilantism related hate crimes and honour killing were reported in 17 cases.”
Half of Hate Crime Victims Were Muslims
“Overall, 72 reported hate crimes were mob attacks. Of these, more than half (37 incidents) were directed at Muslims. In all the incidents, the victims were forced to either say ‘Vande Mataram’ or ‘Jai Sri Ram’ or Jai Hanuman’ or ‘Pakistan Murdabad’ and/or were demanded to remove their skullcaps. In 5 such incidents, the victims were lynched to death”, the report said.
Victims Targeted Based On Their Identities
It further stated that “Many victims were simultaneously targeted for their identities. To illustrate, 58 reported hate crimes were directed at women who identified themselves as Dalit, Muslim, and Christian, Adivasi or LBT (Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender) persons’’.
Women Raped/Sexually Assaulted
According to Amnesty report, the women were either raped or sexually assaulted in 30 of these incidents.
The report says that in the aftermath of the suicide bomb attack in February 2019 in Pulwama where 42 members of the security forces were killed, 14 incidents of mob attacks on Kashmiri Muslims were reported, mostly targeting small-time traders from Kashmir across the country.
Since September 2015, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led states such as Uttar Pradesh followed by Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) led Tamil Nadu have consistently reported highest incidence of alleged hate crimes. The report said that Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of 216 alleged hate crimes between September 2015-June 2019 in the country.
Highlights Of The Report
· 621 alleged hate crimes fuelled by caste.
· 113 alleged hate crimes motivated by cow vigilantism, of which 89 incidents directed at Muslims.
· 216 alleged hate crimes reported in Uttar Pradesh, highest in the country followed by Tamil Nadu (80 incidents), Gujarat (79 incidents), Haryana (61 incidents), Rajasthan (59 incidents) and Karnataka (48 incidents).
· 181 alleged hate crimes reported between January and June 2019, the highest since September 2015.
Hate Crimes Not Recorded As Separate Offence In India
Commenting on this, Amnesty International India’s head and noted journalist Aakar Patel lamented that “Unfortunately, the true extent of hate crimes in India is unknown because the law – with some exceptions – does not recognize hate crimes as separate offences. As a result, government data on discriminatory motives behind crimes remains missing.”
“The alarming rise of the alleged hate crimes clearly indicates that lack of implementation of the Supreme Court guidelines begets lack of accountability and rising impunity”, he said.
Despite the Supreme Court highlighting the need for a concrete definition of ‘lynching’ as a form of vigilantism in July 2018 and directing the state governments to put in place certain preventive, remedial, and punitive measures to combat mob violence, only Rajasthan and Manipur have passed the legislation in this regard. On the other hand, the central government maintains that state governments are competent to enact legislation criminalizing mob lynching. In the absence of any specific laws, these incidents are booked under various legal provisions such as ‘rioting’, ‘unlawful assembly’, ‘murder’, ‘criminal intimidation’, ‘intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace’ etc., which dilutes the gravity of the offence and renders the statistics inadequate as well as misleading.
Highlight The Occurrence Of Hate Crimes
For India to be committed towards ending hate crimes, Aakar Patel suggests that “the first step to ensuring justice and ending impunity for hate crimes – where people are targeted because they belong to a particular group – is to highlight their occurrence”.
“The prosecuting authorities must consistently bring alleged discriminatory motives to the attention of the court when there is sufficient evidence to do so and more importantly, there must be public denouncement of hate and hate crimes, starting with our political leaders,” Aakar Patel emphasised.
No Public Data Available On Hate Crimes
It is pertinent to mention here that in the absence of any publicly available data on hate crimes, the website documents hate crimes from September 2015, when 52-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq was killed in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, for allegedly killing a cow. Since September 2015, there have been 721 incidents of alleged hate crimes, a vast majority of which have been against Dalits and Muslims.
Aakar Patel averred that “the data on our website is only a snapshot of alleged hate crimes in India, and is not comprehensive by any means while many incidents are not reported to the police, and even when they are, many do not make it to mainstream media.”
