Days after taking over as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, Yogi Adityanath declared: "If anyone commits a crime, he will be shot dead”.
What came to be controversially known as ‘thok do’ policy, led to a number of ‘encounters’ of alleged criminals in the state. The message to the field officers was loud and clear. End crime, which was rampant during the SP regime. And the BJP is truly not leaving any stone unturned in it’s campaign trail to make sure that people know this!
In December 2019, the UP Police had tweeted that 5,178 encounters happened in the last two years in which 103 criminals were killed and 1,859 got injured. “17,745 criminals surrendered or cancelled their own bails to go to jail,” the tweet added. During the same period, about 8,000 were arrested of which 5,000 were in Western UP.
While the viral 2018 ‘thain thain’ video may have you believe that encounters are comical, this is far from the truth. Nearly 120 criminals have been eliminated in encounters under Yogi Adityanath's rule, most in western UP.
The encounter killing of gangster Vikas Dubey in 2020, brought focus on Yogi's highhanded approach to crime. On 8 October 2019, an ‘encounter’ involving a 28-year-old man, named Pushpendra Yadav, in Jhansi had raised suspicion. On 27 November 2018, a 20-year-old youth, Irshad Ahmed, of Muzaffarnagar district was killed in an alleged encounter. His family had said Ahmed had no criminal antecedents.
CRIME IN UP TODAY:
A question that arises in a lot of our minds then is - what is the state of crime in UP?
The National Crime Records Bureau shows that in 2017, UP accounted for 12 per cent of all crimes. In 2019, this share was 12.2 per cent. As for crimes against women, the crime rate per lakh population in 2017 was 4; in 2019 it was 2.8.
The most recent numbers from 2021 look promising too. According to ADG Prashant Kumar, a total of 3122 murders were reported in 2021 as compared to 3779 murders in 2020. 17% decline in rape cases has been reported in 2021 with 2289 cases as compared to 2769 cases reported in 2020. As a precautionary measure, the state police have initiated action against 2998 people under the Gangsters Act, against 191 people under the NSA, and against 31,764 under the Goonda Act. Besides, 2284 people were booked for cow slaughter and 8334 people were booked under POCSO.
The UP government has also said time and time again that high crime numbers from UP should be looked at from a population perspective: The national share of UP’s population is 17 percent while the crime rate is 10 percent. The rate of murder and other cognizable offences is below the national average.
PAR AAPKE BALLOT KA KYA?
One would think that a government that’s so against the idea of crime, would keep criminals away from it’s ticket lists. MMM, not quite.
According to My Neta, the BJP has fielded 29 candidates with declared criminal cases against them, of which 22 are charged with serious criminal cases - we wonder what the Thok Do policy has to say about this?
IS FEAR THE WAY TO GO?
Yogi's ‘Thok Denge’ philosophy has civil rights activists and opposition parties concerned for the way the police have been operating. It is not just encounters but also multiple cases of custodial violence, crimes against marginalised women where police cooperation is allegedly lacking, stoping elected officials from moving in the state freely, or even the harsh manner in which the government and the police dealt with anti-CAA protesters. Just a few days ago, videos of cops barging in to college hostels and assaulting students also made many raise their eyebrows over the police’s reaction to student protests.
It’s worth wondering if instilling fear is the correct way to go about curbing crime, or we need to take a long hard look at the way societal attitudes lead to a criminal mindset. But that we guess is a debate for another day!