uring the Parliament session, while giving information in the Lok Sabha, the Union Home Ministry said that in the last five years, the maximum number of police encounters were in Naxal-affected Chhattisgarh. After that Uttar Pradesh comes second in police encounters.
The Central Government gave this information to the question of BJP leader Varun Gandhi. The leader has asked about the police encounters in UP in the last five years. In response, Union Minister of State Nityanand Rai said that from January 2017 to January 31, 2021, 117 cases of police encounters have been registered in Uttar Pradesh. At the same time, in the Naxal-affected Chhattisgarh state, security forces and Maoists opened fire about 191 times.
Varun Gandhi asked for information from the government on the number of FIRs registered in respect of encounter killings during 31 January 2021 and the number of investigations going on against police officers in charge of those murders and the number of police officers convicted. To which Ministry of Home Affairs they do not have any information in this regard.
Responding in the House on behalf of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Home Minister Amit Shah said that the ministry has no such records asked by Varun Gandhi. Arguing to this Amit Shah also said that since police and public order are state subjects according to the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, it is the jurisdiction of the states to keep information on this subject.
In his written reply, Nityanand Rai told the House that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had issued guidelines to determine the procedure to be followed for the investigation of cases of deaths during police action. According to him, every death during police action is reported within 48 hours.
At the same time, in another reply, Nityanand Rai said that a total of 23 cases of custodial death have been registered by the state police between April 2018 and March 2021.