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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Muslims Representation in Police Low, Number of Prisoners Relatively High -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

Muslims Representation in Police Low, Number of Prisoners Relatively High -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

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published Published on May 10, 2018   modified Modified on May 10, 2018
-TheWire.in

A report points at how a large number of Muslims feel they are implicated in terrorism cases, Dalits for petty crimes, and Adivasis for being Maoists.

Muslim representation in the police force remains abysmally low whereas the community continues to have a disproportionately high representation in prisons, a report brought out by Common Cause and the Lokniti-Programme for Comparative Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) has revealed. The study also noted that there was a high perception among Muslims that they were implicated in terrorism-related cases, just as Scheduled Tribes or Adivasis believe that they are implicated as Maoists, and Dalits or Scheduled Castes believe that they are implicated in petty crimes.

The report, which was released on Wednesday, noted that it was “worrying” that Muslims, who happen to be present in almost all states, continue to have “disproportionately low representation in the police force” but a “disproportionately high” representation in the prisons.

“Muslim representation in police, calculated in proportion to their population in the states and at the all-India level, is constantly less than half of the size of their population in India,” the report said, adding that “An even more distressing fact is that the data on Muslim representation in police – provided under Crime in India, NCRB until 2013 – has since been discontinued. The absence of information on this crucial aspect of diversity further clouds the possibilities of improvement in this aspect of policing.”

On how the minorities, and in particular Muslims, remained vulnerable, the report said: “Several studies in different states have been conducted on the disproportionate representation of minorities and vulnerable communities in the prisons. This has been found to be so particularly in the case of Muslims. When coupled with poor conviction rates and incidents of false implication, as recognised by courts, this points to a deeper problem of biases within the structure leading to hyper-incarceration of a particular section of the society.”

Taking the percentage of SC, ST and Muslim prisoners as a proportion to their respective populations in the state as a five-year average, the report further noted that “in case of SCs, only four states (West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Karnataka) out of the selected 22 have SC prisoners in proportion to or less than their population in the State; in case of STs, this number is three (Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland), and in case of Muslims, all of the 22 states have a higher proportion of Muslim prisoners than the Muslim population in the State.”

It added that “the differences are as glaring as more than seven times the Muslim population in Nagaland in 2014, almost six times the population of STs in Uttar Pradesh in 2015 and more than double the percentage of SC population in three states in 2015 (Kerala, Gujarat and Assam). At the all-India level as well, this ratio continues to be skewed adversely against SCs, STs and Muslims through all five years.”

Several Muslims, SCs, STs believe they are implicated

The report said an “aspect of police discrimination is the unfair targeting of certain vulnerable communities by the police and their false implication in cases”. In this regard, it said when respondents were asked to share their views on the false implication of Dalits in petty crimes, Adivasis on Maoist charges and Muslims in terrorism-related cases, 38% respondents agreed with the proposition that often the police falsely implicates members of backward castes, such as Dalits, in petty crimes such as theft, robbery, dacoity etc. Likewise, many claimed that Adivasis were falsely implicated on Maoist charges and Muslims in terrorism related cases, but the proportion of these was “not as high”.

An examination of state-wise opinion, the report said, pointed out that Dalits in Jharkhand, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh; Adivasis in Maharashtra, Gujarat and West Bengal; and Muslims in Telangana, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka were most likely to hold the opinion that their respective communities are falsely implicated by the police than their counterparts in other states.

States not fulfilling reservation targets in police

Drawing a parallel between imprisonment of people from various communities and their representation in the police, the report said only two out of the 22 selected states for this study had met the reserved quota for SCs and these were Punjab and Uttarakhand. Likewise, only six states fulfilled the reservation quota for STs. These were Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Nagaland, Telangana and Uttarakhand. A slightly higher number of nine states achieved the reservation benchmark for OBCs. These states were Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Telangana and Uttarakhand.

When it came to women in police, the all-India percentage was a “shameful” 7.3% as of 2016, the report said, adding that the state with the highest representation was Tamil Nadu at 12.9%. This, too, was just about a third of modest benchmark of 33% reservation for women, it said.

Please click here to read more.

TheWire.in, 10 May, 2018, https://thewire.in/government/muslims-representation-in-police-low-number-of-prisoners-relatively-high


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