New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh has earned the dubious distinction of witnessing the highest number of fake encounters with nearly 743 people being allegedly killed by police in such incidents in past few years.
Statistics released by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the government's replies to MPs' queries in the Lok Sabha revealed that of 1,788 such deaths across India between 2002 and November 2013, Uttar Pradesh has the dubious distinction of being the state with the maximum number of fake encounter deaths (743).
Uttar Pradesh is followed by Assam (273), Andhra Pradesh (101) and Maharashtra (88), according to the NHRC statistics.
Contrary to popular perception, the Narendra Modi-led Gujarat is somewhere at the bottom of the list with just 12 fake encounter deaths since 2002.
It features below Jharkhand (55), Uttarakhand (53), Delhi (52), Chhattisgarh (46), Karnataka (39), Odisha (39), Manipur (38), Meghalaya (33) and even Tamil Nadu (31).
With the election fever on, the figures provide more fodder for the BJP to target the Congress.
After Mulayam and Mayawati, four Congress CMs — Assam's Tarun Gogoi, former Andhra CM YS Rajasekhara Reddy and former Maharashtra CMs Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan — have the worst track record.
