Less than 3% of the arrests made under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act between 2015 and 2020 have resulted in convictions, according to a damning report released by the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) on Friday.
In the five-year period, out of 8,371 persons arrested under the contentious law, only 235 were convicted, the report published on Friday showed, citing data from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).
In a report titled “UAPA: Criminalising Dissent and State Terror”, the PUCL observed that the rate of acquittal (97.2%) showed that prosecution under UAPA lacks merit in huge majority of cases.
The report also questioned the NCRB’s methodology of keeping records. The report also observed that the annual NCRB figures on number of persons acquitted or convicted under the law refer to cases registered in previous years and not to cases filed in the respective years alone.
Since UAPA trials take three to five years to complete, the NCRB data is often insufficient to give the entire picture, it noted.
Out of the 4,690 persons arrested under UAPA between 2018 and 2020, only 1,080 got bail, the report noted, citing data from the Union government.
The rights report also noted that once arrested under UAPA, it usually takes long for a person to get bail if at all the relief is granted.
