Muslims constitute a disproportionately large share of the prison population in Maharashtra. They made up 31.1% of the inmates in the western state in the year 2013, while their share in the Maharashtra’s general population in the 2001 census was 10.6%.
What are these figures now and how have they changed? The decision to find these out seemingly cost the Maharashtra Minorities Commission’s chairman his job last week.
Munaf Hakim announced on January 10 that he wanted to commission a survey to ascertain the number of Muslim inmates in Maharashtra’s jails. Four days later, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government appointed a new Minorities Commission chairman, even though Hakim had completed just half of his five-year term.
In Hakim’s place was installed Mohammed Hussain, a senior BJP leader from Jalgaon district. So far, no formal government resolution announcing the new appointment has been made available on the state government’s website. Hakim claimed he has not been formally dismissed yet but was replaced in a hurry because of his decision to survey the high numbers of Muslim prisoners.
Incongruous numbers
In 2011, the Minorities Commission under the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government appointed the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences to study the socio-economic profile of Muslim inmates and their rehabilitation needs.
The survey, conducted by professors Vijay Raghavan and Roshni Nair from the institute’s criminology department, studied Muslim inmates in 15 of the 28 prisons in Maharashtra. Within this focus group, the study found that Muslims made up 36% of the total prison population, more than three times the share of Muslims in the state’s general population.
The National Crime Records Bureau’s latest prison statistics of 2013 reveals figures for all the state prisons, where the proportion of Muslims remains high. (The figures for the general population are from the 2001 census since religious data for the 2011 census has not yet been released):
The variance in the share of Muslims in the prison and general populations is much higher in Maharashtra than in India as a whole:
The trend of disproportionately high Muslim prisoners has been prevalent in Maharashtra for several years:
Clearing misconceptions
The 2011 TISS survey offered a broader analysis of the kinds of Muslim prisoners in the state. The study found that of the 3,086 Muslim inmates interviewed, 65.5% were young, between 18 and 30 years of age. Of the Muslim population in those prisons, 42.5% were charged with violent offences such as murder and assault, and more than 29% were charged with offences against property.
Only 6.2% of them were arrested for organised crime or terrorism-related offences under acts like the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, Terrorist and Destructive Activities (Prevention) Act, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act or the Official Secrets Act.
“A majority of the respondents viewed themselves as victims of a corrupt police system,” said Ragahavan and Nair in a summary of the survey report in the Economic and Political Weekly in 2013. “Some respondents felt that the biased attitude of the system against the Muslim community was responsible for their repeated arrests.”
Hurried business
Hakim was keen to commission TISS to do a follow-up survey on the same subject this year, to assess the changes in the numbers and conditions of prisoners from the minority community.
“The Minorities Commission has the authority to appoint any study relating to minority affairs and submit a report to the government for action,” Hakim told Scroll.in from his hometown in Satara district. “But I don’t think the new [BJP-Shiv Sena] government wants such a survey conducted. It is clear that I am a hurdle for them because a new chairman was appointed all of a sudden.”
Hakim claims the state government has not yet given him an official letter of dismissal or even directly asked him to leave. On January 15, he finished work at 6.30 pm and left for Satara to visit his ailing mother. Three hours later, Hussain took charge of the office and the chair.
“What was the urgent need for the new chairman to take charge at night, well beyond work hours?” said Hakim.
Hussain, however, claims that the appointment of new head of the commission is standard practice when a new government takes over the state. “There is nothing unusual or urgent about taking charge of my post late at night,” said Hussain. “And the change of chairman has nothing to do with the proposed survey of Muslim prisoners.”
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What are these figures now and how have they changed? The decision to find these out seemingly cost the Maharashtra Minorities Commission’s chairman his job last week.
Munaf Hakim announced on January 10 that he wanted to commission a survey to ascertain the number of Muslim inmates in Maharashtra’s jails. Four days later, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government appointed a new Minorities Commission chairman, even though Hakim had completed just half of his five-year term.
In Hakim’s place was installed Mohammed Hussain, a senior BJP leader from Jalgaon district. So far, no formal government resolution announcing the new appointment has been made available on the state government’s website. Hakim claimed he has not been formally dismissed yet but was replaced in a hurry because of his decision to survey the high numbers of Muslim prisoners.
Incongruous numbers
In 2011, the Minorities Commission under the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government appointed the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences to study the socio-economic profile of Muslim inmates and their rehabilitation needs.
The survey, conducted by professors Vijay Raghavan and Roshni Nair from the institute’s criminology department, studied Muslim inmates in 15 of the 28 prisons in Maharashtra. Within this focus group, the study found that Muslims made up 36% of the total prison population, more than three times the share of Muslims in the state’s general population.
The National Crime Records Bureau’s latest prison statistics of 2013 reveals figures for all the state prisons, where the proportion of Muslims remains high. (The figures for the general population are from the 2001 census since religious data for the 2011 census has not yet been released):
The variance in the share of Muslims in the prison and general populations is much higher in Maharashtra than in India as a whole:
The trend of disproportionately high Muslim prisoners has been prevalent in Maharashtra for several years:
Clearing misconceptions
The 2011 TISS survey offered a broader analysis of the kinds of Muslim prisoners in the state. The study found that of the 3,086 Muslim inmates interviewed, 65.5% were young, between 18 and 30 years of age. Of the Muslim population in those prisons, 42.5% were charged with violent offences such as murder and assault, and more than 29% were charged with offences against property.
Only 6.2% of them were arrested for organised crime or terrorism-related offences under acts like the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, Terrorist and Destructive Activities (Prevention) Act, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act or the Official Secrets Act.
“A majority of the respondents viewed themselves as victims of a corrupt police system,” said Ragahavan and Nair in a summary of the survey report in the Economic and Political Weekly in 2013. “Some respondents felt that the biased attitude of the system against the Muslim community was responsible for their repeated arrests.”
Hurried business
Hakim was keen to commission TISS to do a follow-up survey on the same subject this year, to assess the changes in the numbers and conditions of prisoners from the minority community.
“The Minorities Commission has the authority to appoint any study relating to minority affairs and submit a report to the government for action,” Hakim told Scroll.in from his hometown in Satara district. “But I don’t think the new [BJP-Shiv Sena] government wants such a survey conducted. It is clear that I am a hurdle for them because a new chairman was appointed all of a sudden.”
Hakim claims the state government has not yet given him an official letter of dismissal or even directly asked him to leave. On January 15, he finished work at 6.30 pm and left for Satara to visit his ailing mother. Three hours later, Hussain took charge of the office and the chair.
“What was the urgent need for the new chairman to take charge at night, well beyond work hours?” said Hakim.
Hussain, however, claims that the appointment of new head of the commission is standard practice when a new government takes over the state. “There is nothing unusual or urgent about taking charge of my post late at night,” said Hussain. “And the change of chairman has nothing to do with the proposed survey of Muslim prisoners.”
