Meenakshi Lekhi’s Claim About ‘No Riots in Guj Post 2002’ is False

While addressing the Lok Sabha on the violence that broke out in parts of northeast Delhi on 24-25 February, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Meenakshi Lekhi claimed that most incidents of rioting have taken place under the Congress regime adding that the only incident of riots, which everyone is always reminded of, was in Gujarat in 2002 and there has been no such case post that in the state.

Let’s take look at how the data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which falls under the ambit of the Ministry of Home Affairs, contradicts Lekhi’s claims. According to the NCRB data from the year 2014, 57 cases of communal violence/riots were reported from the state of Gujarat while the total number of cases of riots in the state were 1,354. NCRB recorded the number of victims for these 57 cases to be at 107.

For the year 2015, the number of cases of riots that were recorded were 1,751 while those of communal violence/riots stood at 45. While for the year 2016, the number of communal riots/violence in the state stood at 62 with 105 victims. Similarly for 2017 and 2018, the total number of cases of riots in the state stood at 1,740 and 1,898 respectively. And the cases of communal violence/riots were 44 and 39 respectively.

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