<update>This post has nothing to do with the recent debate on fake encounters in Gujarat. The time period of the Gujarat encounters currently in focus predates the time period of the data available here. This post only covers encounters from 2009 onwards </update>
The Ministry of Home Affairs, in response to an unstarred question in the Lok Sabha, has put out statistics on the number of fake encounters per state in the last four years (HT: @offstumped). Let us look at which states have had the most encounters relative to their population.
Manipur is far far ahead of every other state, with 22 encounters in the last 4 years per million population (total of 62 encounters in the last 4 years). Andaman and Nicobar Islands follow, but that is an aberration since the islands have had one fake encounter, and that has shown up as significant thanks to their small population. Interestingly, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat fall towards the bottom of the table, as does Bihar.
To get a better picture of the other states, let us remove Manipur and see the same graph.
I leave it to you to form your own conclusions, but encourage you to share your conclusions in the comments section below.
I find Uttarakhand being up there a bit puzzling. I can rationalise (but obviously don’t condone) Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand being up there because of them having to deal with Naxalism but Uttarakhand??
Hats off to the Gujarat Police. Their manipulation of the figures, clearly, is second to none.
You should normalize with number of policemen killed
Wonder what the ratio is of fake encounters is to real encounters.