From Mohammed Akhlaq to Rakbar Khan, the most recent victim of cow vigilantes at Alwar in BJP ruled Rajasthan, Shashi Tharoor comes out with data provided by the government to maintain that mob lynchings and communal incidents has got worse since BJP came to power in 2014.

Stepping up his attack against the BJP –led government at the Centre, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said in a column he has written for The Print that the figures provided by home ministry to questions in the Lok Sabha and the data available with National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) simply do not add up to the picture the government seeks to portray. He thereby refuted home minister Rajnath Singh’s ‘robust denial’ recently that mob lynching got any worse under BJP rule and minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi’s claim earlier this month that there was no `big’ communal riots during the past four years.

Tharoor tweeted, "Why BJP Ministers' claims about reduction in communal violence don't stand up to the facts: It seems safer in many places to be a cow than a Muslim,"  pointed out that according to the government Uttar Pradesh (UP), somewhat predictably, reported the most communal incidents over the last four years, a staggering 645. UP also reported the most deaths in these communal incidents (121) between 2014 and 2017, followed by Rajasthan (36) and Karnataka (35). The venues for communal rioting on the BJP’s watch have ranged from Ballabgarh, Haryana, in 2015 to Bhima-Koregaon, Maharashtra, this year.

The home ministry’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data confirm that over 2,885 communal riots were reported between 2014 and 2016. Many others may not have been recorded as communal; as many as 61,974 riots were reported in 2016 under Sections 147 to 151 and 153A of the IPC (the latter records cases relating to “promoting enmity on ground of religion, race and place of birth”). In 2016, 869 communal riots were reported, the largest number in Haryana (250). 

"The figures for 2017 haven’t been released yet. More than halfway into 2018, I dread what they are likely to reveal," Tharoor said.

Tharoor recently warned that if BJP is re-elected in 2019 Lok Sabha elections the saffron party would make India ‘Hindu Pakistan.'

July 23, 2018