About 73% of the total 71,107 cases of offences against public tranquillity registered under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2020 pertained to rioting-related incidents, data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has revealed.
There were 51,606 cases of rioting across the states, which were included as part of crimes against public tranquillity, which showed a 12.4% increase in 2020 as compared to 63,262 such cases in 2019.
Indian metros registered 4,437 such cases, more that half of which (2,264) were rioting cases. Offences against public tranquillity in metros showed an increase of 14% in 2020 compared to 3,893 cases in 2019.
1,032 such incidents were stated to be political in nature whereas 736 incidents stemmed from caste-related conflicts. 233 such incidents involved students.
Of the 1,905 incidents of rioting pertaining to “andolan/morcha”, Kerala witnessed 94% of these cases (1,798), followed by Maharashtra with 23 cases and Gujarat with 9. Among all union territories, Delhi showed only a single incident related to rioting during andolan/morcha.
With 857 crimes related to communal or religious factors, there was a 96% rise in 2020 as compared to 2019, during which 438 such cases were registered. Of the total communal incidents, Delhi witnessed 520 cases, Bihar saw 117 cases and 51 cases took place in Jharkhand and Haryana each.
In 2020, there were 29,768 cases against juveniles, showing a 7.8% decline from 32,269 cases in the previous year.
A total of 35,352 juveniles were apprehended in these cases, of which 31,618 were apprehended under cases of the Indian Penal Code and 3,734 were apprehended under cases of special and local laws (SLL) during 2020.
A majority of the juveniles in conflict with the law apprehended under IPC and SLL crimes were between the age group of 16 and 18 years. Also, Chhattisgarh had a crime rate of 21.4%, Madhya Pradesh 16.8% and Tamil Nadu had a rate of 16.4% of crimes committed by juveniles in 2020.
Data showed that of the 842 murder cases reported against juveniles in the country, 10 juveniles who were apprehended were less than 12 years of age whereas 250 male juveniles and 10 female juveniles fell in the age group of 12-16 years in 2020.
The pandemic-induced lockdown seems to have not deterred drug peddling cases, as seizures of various drugs by the police showed an exponential rise in 2020. While substances such as cocaine showed a rise of 1350% in terms of its seizure, there was a 129% increase in the seizure of Ganja during 2020 compared to the previous year. All seizures in the year summed up to a massive 13.69 lakh kilos.
Therefore, the total rise in seizures of such substances rose from 11.06 lakh kilos in 2019 to 13.69 lakh kilos showing a 24% rise in seizures during the pandemic.