Most Civilian Casualties in Police Operations in 2018, 2019 Reported from J&K: NCRB Data

Over the last two years data, most of the civilian casualties in police operations have been reported from Jammu and Kashmir.

News18 compared the latest data available with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for 2019 with that of the previous year and found that the data provided under the subhead ‘civilians killed during police operations’ shows that 46% of all the people in police operations in 2019 and 66% of all the people killed in police operations in 2018 were reported from Jammu and Kashmir.

In 2019, a total of 71 people were reported to be killed in police operations. Of these casualties, the most – 33 — were reported from J&K. The second-highest number – 15 — was reported from Maharashtra. Within the casualties in Kashmir, most of the deaths – 12 — were reported to have occurred in cross-border firing, followed by 11 in firing by ‘anti-nationals’.

In 2018, when 112 people were reported to have been killed during police operations, 74 people, or nearly 66% of the total casualties, were reported from J&K, followed by 14 from Tamil Nadu and 11 from Telangana. Most of the 74 deaths reported from J&K, were reported to have happened during police encounters. Nine people in the state were reported to have died in 2018 in cross-border firing.

The rise in the number of casualties — from zero in 2018 to 12 in 2019 — in cross-border firing corresponds to the massive rise in the number of ceasefire violations between India and Pakistan in the last year following the suicide attack in Pulwama.

Forty CRPF personnel died in a fidayeen-style attack on the Indian forces in South Kashmir in February last year. Following this, India carried out ‘surgical strikes’ across the LoC reportedly hitting terror launchpads. Soon after, tensions at the border between the two countries rose feverishly high and by the end of the year, 3,289 ceasefire violations, or an average of nine such violations per day, the highest over the last 16 years, were reported in the year.

Of these, 1,565 ceasefire violations reportedly took place since August 2019, after the Indian government abrogated Article 370 and bifurcated the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories.