NEW DELHI
— Replacing the century-old criminal laws with a new set of legislations
for introducing a modern and technology-driven criminal justice system, rolling
out the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act and fire-fighting to check
unabated violence in Manipur kept the Union home ministry busy in 2024.
Assisting the Election Commission in holding the assembly
elections in Jammu and Kashmir without major incidents and bringing down the
violence in Naxal-affected states and northeastern region are the other key
highlights of the country's crucial ministry.
While the population enumeration exercise Census continues
to be on hold for past four years as no decision has been taken by the ministry
as to when it will be carried out, the ministry created five year districts in
Ladakh and renamed Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands as Sri Vijaya
Puram during the year.
The three new criminal laws -- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the
Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam --
replaced the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and
the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 respectively. The new laws came into effect
from July 1.
Home Minister Amit Shah, who piloted the legislations, said
the new laws would give priority to providing justice, unlike the colonial-era
laws that gave primacy to penal action.
"These laws are made by Indians, for Indians and by an
Indian Parliament and marks the end of colonial criminal justice laws," he
said.
Shah said the laws were not just about changing the
nomenclature but bringing about a complete overhaul. "Soul, body and
spirit of the new laws are Indian," he said.
The new laws brought in a modern justice system,
incorporating provisions such as Zero FIR, online registration of police
complaints, summonses through electronic modes such as SMS and mandatory
videography of crime scenes for all heinous crimes.
According to home ministry officials, the new laws have
tried to address some of the current social realities and crimes and are going
to provide a mechanism to effectively deal with these, keeping in view the
ideals enshrined in the Constitution.
The CAA, which was enacted in December 2019 for granting
Indian nationality to persecuted Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and
Christian migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who came to India
on or before December 31, 2014, was rolled out in March and the first set of 14
people were granted Indian citizenship under the law in May.
Shah termed the occasion of granting Indian citizenship
under the CAA as a "historic day", saying the decades-long wait of
those who faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan
is over.
After the enactment in 2019, the CAA got the president's
assent a few days later but the rules under which the Indian citizenship were
supposed to be granted were issued only on March 11 after over a delay of four
years.
The passing of the CAA in 2019 sparked protests in different
parts of the country with agitators terming it "discriminatory". Over
a hundred people had lost their lives during the anti-CAA protests or police
action in various parts of the country.
To allay fears of a section of Muslims and students
regarding the CAA, the home ministry, a day after the CAA rules were issued,
asserted that the Indian Muslims need not worry as the new legislation would
not impact their citizenship and has nothing to do with the community which
enjoys equal rights as their Hindu brethren.
The ministry made it clear that "no Indian citizen
would be asked to produce any document to prove his citizenship after this
Act".
Intermittent violence continues to rock Manipur, where the
first bout of ethnic clash between majority Meiteis and tribal Kukis was
witnessed in May 2023.
Even after the death of about 260 people, injury to hundreds
and displacement of thousands of people, peace continues to be elusive in the
northeastern state. Though there have been efforts from the central government
to bring the warring communities into negotiating table, sporadic violence
continues there.
Members of the ruling BJP were also not spared. Mobs set
fire to the residences of several BJP legislators, one of whom is a senior
minister, and a Congress MLA in various districts of Imphal Valley in November
besides making a foiled attempt to storm the ancestral house of Chief Minister
N Biren Singh.
Seeing the fragile situation, the Centre in November
reimposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in Manipur's six police station
areas, including the violence-hit Jiribam.
On December 24, the Centre appointed former union home
secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla as new Manipur governor, in an apparent bid to help
itself find a lasting peace. However, it is to be seen how Bhalla will walk
through the difficult terrain of the sensitive state.
Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a relatively peaceful assembly
elections, which was held after a gap of 10 years.
According to a presentation given by the home ministry to a
parliamentary panel, there has been over 70 per cent decline in terror-related
incidents in Jammu and Kashmir since 2019, when Article 370 was scrapped and
the erstwhile state was bifurcated into two Union Territories -- Jammu and
Kashmir and Ladakh.
The ministry said in 2019, as many as 286 terror-related
incidents were reported in Jammu Kashmir and the number came down to just 40 in
2024 (till first week of November).
In 2019, as many as 50 civilians were killed in
terror-related incidents and the casualty figure came down to 14 so far this
year.
On attacks on security forces, the home ministry said a
total of 96 such incidents were reported in 2019 and it went up to 111 in 2020
but since then there has been a steady decline and the number of such attacks
came down to 95 in 2021, 65 in 2022 and 15 in 2023 and five so far in 2024.
About casualties of security forces, the ministry said
altogether 77 security personnel were killed in various incidents in 2019.
In 2020, 58 personnel were killed, 29 in 2021, 26 in 2022,
11 in 2023 and seven so far in 2024.
Violence perpetrated by Naxals also witnessed a decline.
There has been 72 per cent less violence by Maoists while the country has seen
an 86 per cent decline in deaths by Naxals in 2023 as compared to 2010.
In a recent visit to Naxal-affected Bastar region of
Chhattisgarh, Shah appealed to the Naxals to give up the arms and join the
mainstream and said otherwise they will have to face the strong action of
security forces.
He said the rehabilitation of the surrendered Naxals is the
responsibility of the government.
Shah said the government is committed to make India
Naxal-free by March 31, 2026 as a comprehensive three-pronged strategy is being
adopted to free all affected areas in the country from the menace.
The work for India's much-delayed decadal census and the
exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) has not started yet,
thus changing the future census cycle completely.
Since 1951, the country's census was conducted at a gap of
every 10 years but the census work in 2021 could not be carried out due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. So far no formal announcement has been made on its next
schedule.
Last month, the home ministry made it clear that any NGO
which is involved in anti-developmental activities, religious conversion,
incite protests with malicious intentions, has linkage with terrorist or
radical organisations will face cancellation of its Foreign Contribution
(Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) registration.
According to the law, all NGOs receiving foreign
contributions have to be registered under the FCRA or else is not allowed to
accept foreign funding.
The home minister last week started the process of
rehabilitation of Bru tribal community members in Tripura following a
quadripartite agreement signed on January 16, 2020.
The pact was signed among the governments of India, Tripura,
Mizoram and representatives of Bru organisations for the permanent
rehabilitation of Bru migrants in Tripura.
As many as 6,935 families with a population of 37,584 are
being rehabilitated in 12 villages in Tripura. The Bru tribals were displaced
from Mizoram following ethnic violence in lst 1990s and early 2000s.
Continuing its thrust on comprehensive development of
villages located in remote areas along the border with China, the government
allocated Rs 1,050 crore for 2024-25 under the Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP)
that will benefit select villages in 19 districts in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim,
Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh.
The central government has approved the VVP as a centrally
sponsored scheme on February 15, 2023, with financial outlay of Rs 4,800 crore
for the financial year 2022-23 to 2025-26 for comprehensive development of the
select villages in 46 blocks in 19 districts abutting the northern border.
