The share of Muslims in India’s total prison population comprising convicts, undertrials, detenues and others has declined to 18.7% in 2021 from 20.2% in 2020, while the percentage of Hindus rose to 73.6% from 72.8% over the same period, according to the latest all-India prison statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
As on December 31, 2021, the percentage of Sikhs in the country’s prison population increased to 4.2% from 3.4% at the end of 2020; while that of Christians fell marginally to 2.5% from 2.6% in the relevant time period. In absolute terms, too, there has been a rather sharp rise in the number of Sikh prisoners, from 15,807 on December 31, 2020 to 22,100 on December 31, 2021. Census 2011 had returned the share of Hindus in India’s population as 79.8%, that of Muslims as 14.2%, of Sikhs 1.72% and of Christians 2.3%.
As per the religion-wise breakup available for 520,000 of the total 550,000 prisoners across India (as Maharashtra did not submit the breakup for undertrials and detenues to NCRB), over 380,000 were Hindus, 97,650 Muslims, 22,100 Sikhs, 13,118 Christians and 4,785 from other faiths.
Muslims as a percentage of convicts imprisoned across the country fell to 15.9% in 2021, as percentage of undertrials to almost 18% from 19.5%; and as percentage of detenues to 27.7% from 30.7%. The share of Muslims among convicted prisoners was highest in Assam (60.5%), Maharashtra (25.5%), Telangana (21.7%) and UP (20.22%). Over 68% of the jailed undertrials in J&K on December 31, 2021 were Muslims; as were 49.3% of the undertrials in Assam (down from 52% in 2020), 42.8% in West Bengal (down from 43.5%), 31.3% in Kerala, 29.6% in Uttarakhand, 28.4% in Delhi and 25.9% in UP.
