Deaths due to police shootings increased by nine times in J&K last year, Centre tells Lok Sabha

The number of people killed in police shootings in Jammu and Kashmir increased by nine times in 2021-’22, the Centre told Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

The number of deaths due to police shooting in the Union Territory increased from five in 2020-’21 to 45 in the following year.

The number of deaths due to police shootings in India increased from 82 in 2020-’21 to 151 in 2021-’22, according to government data.

The information was provided by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai in response to a question by Indian Union Muslim League MP Abdussamad Samadani.

Assam also saw an increase in police shootings. While four people died in the state in 2020-’21, the number went up to 18 in 2021-’22, according to government data.

There are varying reports on the number of deaths due to police shootings in Assam. In June, the state government told the Gauhati High Court that police have killed 51 persons since May 2021 when the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power. In December, Scroll.in had examined police records and found that 20 of the killed persons belonged to the state’s ethnic and religious minorities.

The Assam government has openly backed police shootings. In March, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the police’s tough stand against criminals was working.

Apart from Jammu Kashmir and Assam, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh also saw a rise in police shootings.

In the last two years, 54 people were killed in Chhattisgarh. Out of these, 30 shootings happened in 2021-’22.

Similarly, in Jharkhand, there were five police shootings in 2020-’21 and the number increased to nine in 2021-’22, the data showed.