Far from ‘peaceful’, Rajasthan sees alarming rise in crime
When Aditya Sachdeva was shot dead in a road rage incident involving the son of a ruling party MLC, the BJP instantly dubbed the incident an indication of “return of jungle raj” in Bihar. After two more killings the epithet turned into “Maha jungle raj”.
Although the recent spurt in violent crime in Bihar is indeed cause for concern for people in the state, the situation in other states is even worse. One only needs to mine the annual crime data of states compiled by NCRB.
Several states, including those run by the BJP, are giving Bihar tough competition for the infamous moniker. But before that, just a few examples to give an idea of what is the ground reality in a state like Rajasthan, considered one of the most peaceful in the country.
A group of 50 students armed with knives and iron roads attacked two students from Bihar, Satyaprakash and Sandeep, in India’s coaching hub Kota on Thursday. Satyaprakash died of multiple stabs in his chest while Sandeep is critical. The same day the police recovered the headless body of 13-year-old Bhavesh, 25 km from the place where he had been kidnapped a week ago. If this doesn’t ring any alarm bells consider this: 219 murders, 577 rapes and 779 kidnappings have taken place in the first two months of this year — an average of 10 rapes, 15 kidnappings and four murders have been taking place daily in Rajasthan. In fact, among the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states — previously known as BIMARU states — the law and order situation even if marginally has at least improved, particularly in Bihar under Nitish Kumar while among BJP-ruled states, especially in Rajasthan, it has gone from bad to worse.
According to NCRB data for 2014, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, both ruled by the BJP, were among top five contributors for the total IPC crimes in the country; Bihar was a distant 13th. In MP, the crime rate was 358, Rajasthan 295, Haryana 258, Chhattisgarh 229 and Gujarat 213 in 2014. In Bihar, it is 174 per lakh.
Rajasthan, having consistently maintaining its place among the top five for over a decade, also holds the dubious distinction of being the top state for atrocities against dalits and adivasis (SC/ST), placed third in the total number of crimes against women and second in the number of rape cases after Madhya Pradesh; Bihar was 12th with sexual offences rate of 4.6 compared to 41.8 of Madhya Pradesh and 29.8 of Rajasthan. However, according to former DGP Omendra Bhardwaj, the crime rate is not the right way of comparison as it doesn’t reflect the ground situation because the Rajasthan police is liberal in registering cases whereas others don’t.
But contrary to what Mr Bhardwaj said, the Rajasthan police is actually being accused of postponing the registration of first information reports (FIRs) towards the yearend to bring down the annual tally of offences, an indication of which is cognisance taken by the state human rights commission and 65,000 written court complaints were registered on order of the court out of the total 2.43 written complaints.
Still, figures only give an indication. The real picture emerges only when you learn about gang wars between liquor and real estate mafias not just in public, but within highly-secured jail premises, when gangsters roam around freely, strike at will and escape from police custody and when the police is being seen in connivance with criminals. Seven months after Vasundhara Raje sworn in as the chief minister, a gang war took place in Bikaner jail in which three persons killed. The person who was target of this attacks, Anandpal Singh, allegedly having patronage of politicians, escaped from police custody six months ago. While the police was unable to trace him, the gangster reappeared and killed a constable in a gunbattle. The lack of fear of the law also reflects in which a mob comprising dominant caste mowed down three dalits by a tractor. One more way of looking at “jungle raj” is connivance of the police with criminals. Anandpal was helped by a few policemen. A few days ago, criminals trying to dodge Haryana cops were intercepted by a Rajasthan police patrol, instead of arresting the criminals, the cops struck a deal and agreed to let them go in lieu of 20 lakh.
Yet, in the popular perception “jungle raj” exists only in Bihar. But, PUCL general secretary Kavita Srivastava said this is because people in Bihar politically more aware and self critical while feudal mindset still prevails in Rajasthan. She also blames media for this situation as it doesn’t give proper coverage to similar incidents in Rajasthan. “The media has been silent in Rajasthan,” she alleged.
