India is undercounting religious hate crimes by failing to invoke a crucial section of the law

scroll.in 30 December 2017

by Abhishek Dey

[ . . . ] This year, the government told the Lok Sabha that cases registered under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code had risen by 41% in three years. But the data appears to under-represent the scale of religion-based hate crimes in India.

Scroll.in retraced five cases of hate crimes reported prominently in the media in 2017 in which Muslims were targeted using cows and beef as the excuse. In all five cases, including the murder of Junaid, Scroll.in found that the police had failed to register offences under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code, despite overwhelming evidence that the crimes were not only motivated by religious hate but also deepened communal tensions in the area and disturbed social harmony. [. . .]
https://scroll.in/article/863176/2017-india-is-undercounting-religious-hate-crimes-by-not-invoking-a-crucial-section-of-the-law