Agrarian riot cases increase by 40% in 2020: As per NCRB data

According to the latest data on ‘Crime in India’ released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), communal riots registered an increase of 96% in 2020 over the previous year. Similarly, caste riots saw an increase of close to 50%, agrarian riots 38% and riots during ‘andolan/morcha’ increased by 33%. What is most peculiar is that the category of an ‘agrarian’ riot (which is one of eight subcategories of riots: industry, sectarian, student, communal, caste conflicts, political and other) is a fuzzy classification with no clear definition. The riots recorded in the NCRB’s ‘Crime in India’ report are those that have been registered between Sections 147-151 and 153(A) of the Indian Penal Code and the division between each is left to the discretion of the police stations.As many as 2,188 cases of agrarian riots were reported in 2020 compared with 1,579 in 2019, according to the NCRB Crime in India Report. The cases were registered under Sections 147 to 151 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which are invoked for rioting and unlawful assembly.