Digital Desk: In the last five years, there have been 655 police encounters in the country, with Chhattisgarh reporting the most cases (191), minister of state for home Nityanand Rai told Parliament on Tuesday.
Responding to a question of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Varun Gandhi, Rai said that apart from the 191 police encounter in Chhattisgarh, 117 such events were reported in Uttar Pradesh in the last five years, 50 in Assam, 49 in Jharkhand, 36 in Odisha, and 35 in Jammu & Kashmir.
Rai added that 26 police encounters occurred in Maharashtra between January 1, 2017, and January 31, 2022.
During the same period, there were 22 such events in Bihar, 15 in Haryana, 14 in Tamil Nadu, 13 each in Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh, nine each in Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya, and eight in Rajasthan and Delhi.
Further, in response to Gandhi's inquiry about ongoing investigations against police officers accused of encounters, Rai stated that no such records are kept centrally because law enforcement and public order are state topics.
